CARPENTER'S 
EW GEOGRAPHICAL 
READER 




SOUTH 

AMEMCA 




class r X,X1. ^ 

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Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




Llamas are the only beasts of burden native to South America. 
They are still used in the Andes. 



CARPENTER'S NEW GEOGRAPHICAL READER 



SOUTH AMERICA 



BY 



FRANK G. CARPENTER, Litt.D. 

AUTHOR OF 

" AROUND THE WORLD WITH THE CHILDREN" AND 

"READERS ON COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY" 




AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 

BOSTON ATLANTA 



'- 



BOOKS BY 
FRANK G. CARPENTER 



"Reading Carpenter is Seeing the World" 

ITntroouctfon to <3eograpb£ 

AROUND THE WORLD WITH THE CHILDREN 

(Seograpbical IReaoers 

NORTH AMERICA 

SOUTH AMERICA 

EUROPE 

ASIA 

AFRICA 

AUSTRALIA AND ISLANDS OF THE SEA 

IReaoers on Commerce ano ITnoustrE 

HOW THE WORLD IS FED 
HOW THE WORLD IS CLOTHED 
HOW THE WORLD IS HOUSED 



Copyright, 1899, 1912, 1915, 1921, by 
FRANK G. CARPENTER 

E. P. I 




Mm -7 1321 
©CI.A611933 



o 
CO 



PREFACE 

This book is a revised edition of Carpenter's Geographical 
Reader, " South America," which for many years has been 
widely used in our schools. It is more than a revision, 
however, for it is a new work based upon up-to-date in- 
formation gathered by the author during a recent tour of 
more than twenty-five thousand miles made by him in the 
countries described. 

During this tour Mr. Carpenter has kept the children 
always in mind, and his story of their travels will, it is 
believed, bring them into a close personal relation with 
their brothers and sisters of South America. It will give 
them also a live working knowledge of the geography, re- 
sources, and people of each of the republics, and of the 
social, industrial, and commercial relations which each 
holds to the United States. 

The plan is the same as that adopted in all the books of 
this series. It consists of imaginary travels made by the 
children with the author in -the countries described. In 
this volume the children start out on a voyage from New 
York to thejfethmus of Panama, and from there move about 
leisurely from one South American country to another, 
making their observations and studies along the lines above 
mentioned. It is the children who do the traveling, and 
the book is the story of what they see and learn. 

Here and there throughout the story the author has in- 
serted questions which suggest interesting research work 
for the children. These will, it is believed, add greatly to 

7 



8 PREFACE 

the value of the book. In connection with this feature, 
tables and diagrams of statistical information will be 
found at the back, and maps have been freely introduced 
throughout the text. The pictures also will furnish ma- 
terial for study. Most of them are new, and many 
are from photographs taken by the author to illustrate 
this book. 

In order to bring out the world relations of South Amer- 
ica, frequent comparisons with the United States and 
other countries and people of the world should be made 
by the children. For this purpose, reference to the other 
volumes of the Carpenter Readers will prove valuable. For 
example, in connection with the diamond mines of Brazil, 
the interest and information of the child will be increased 
by comparing them with the diamond mines of Kimberley 
in Carpenter's " Africa," by reading of the diamond indus- 
try in Carpenter's "How the World is Clothed," and by a 
visit to the diamond cutting establishments of Amsterdam, 
in Carpenter's "Europe." In the same way, the world 
study of cotton, coffee, rubber, wool, meat, and almost 
every other product of South America may be developed. 

The two series of books referred to in this connection 
comprise Carpenter's Geographical Readers on North Amer- 
ica, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, 
and his Industrial Readers entitled: "How the World is 
Clothed," "How the World is Fed," and "How the World 
is Housed." 



CONTENTS 



I. Introduction 

II. From New York to Panama 

III. Panama and the Pacific Ocean . 

IV. We Steam through the Canal . 
V. The Republic op Colombia . . " \ 

VI. Up the Magdalena to Bogota . 

VII. Emeralds and Platinum 

VIII. A Land op the Equator . . . 

IX. . Climbing the Andes to Quito 

X. In the Great South American Desert 

XL In Lima, the Capital op Peru . 

XII. Up the Andes ..... 

XIII. On the Roop op South America 

XIV. Steamboating above the Clouds 
XV. Travels in Bolivia .... 

XVI. The Mineral Wealth op the Andes . 

XVII. Chile — The Nitrate Desert and the Guano 

Islands . . . . 

XVIII. Along the Coast to Valparaiso 

XIX. Across South America by Rail . 

XX. Santiago, the Capital op Chile 

XXI. A Visit to a Chilean Fa£m 

XXII. Southern Chile and the Araucanians 

XXIII. In the Coal Mines of Chile 

XXIV. In and about the Strait of Magellan 

9 



PAGE 
13 
21 
27 

31 

40 

45 

5i 
56 
66 

76 

85 

92 

98 

in 

117 

130 

i35 
144 
iSi 
159 
165 
172 

175 
181 



IO 



CONTENTS 



XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 

XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

XXXIX. 

XL. 

XLI. 

XLII. 

XLIII. 

XLIV. 

XLV. 

XL VI. 

XLVII. 

XLVIII. 

XLIX. 

L. 

LI. 



At the End of the Continent 
Argentina — Patagonia .... 
In Argentina — Life on the Pampas 
The Bread Lands of South America 

Buenos Aires 

Uruguay — Monte video .... 
Up the Rio de la Plata System 

The Gran Chaco 

Paraguay 

A Trip into the Interior of Paraguay 
Mate, or Paraguay Tea . . 

Brazil 

The Wilds of Matto Grosso . 

The Niagara of South America — Southern 

Brazil 

Santos and Sao Paulo . . 

In the Land of Coffee .... 

A City of Snakes — Some Wild Animals of 

Brazil . . . . . . . 

Rio de Janeiro 

More about Rio 

Bahia 

The Mines of Brazil — Diamonds, Iron, and 

Gold . . . . ... 

Along the Coast of Brazil 

The King of Rivers 

Para, the Metropolis of the Amazon . 
In the Land of Rubber .... 
A Trip on the Amazon River . 
Some Wild Indians of Brazil . 



CONTENTS 



II 



PAGE 

LII. The Orinoco and the Llanos . . . . .365 

LIII. Venezuela and Its Capital . , . . .370 

LIV. La Gualra and Caracas -373 

LV. The Guianas 379 

Tables 390 

Index . 397 



LIST OF MAPS 

South America (colored map) 

South America (black relief map) 

New York to Panama (route map) 

Canal Zone (black relief map) 

Colombia (route map) 

Ecuador (route map) 

Peru (route map) . 

Bolivia (route map) 

Chile (route map) . 

Argentina (route map) 

Uruguay (route map) 

Paraguay (route map) 

Brazil (route map) 

Venezuela (route map) 

The Guianas (route map) 



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Facsimile of passport issued by the Department of State to Mr. 
Carpenter. This passport admitted the author to South American 
countries to gather the material for this book. 



SOUTH AMERICA 



I. INTRODUCTION 

WE shall start on our journey to South America from 
the city, of Washington. We have come by train 
from our homes to the national capital, have called upon 
the President at the White House, and after taking the oath 
of allegiance to the United States have arranged with the 
Secretary of State for our passports. Each passport bears 
a photograph of its owner, his signature, and a description 
showing just how he looks. It tells how tall he is, the color 
of his eyes, hair, and face, describes his nose, chin, and 
mouth, and tells just how old he was when the passport 
was issued. It is signed by the Secretary of State, and it 
requests all people to permit the bearer to pass safely and 
freely and to give him all lawful aid and protection. We 
shall need these passports to prove we are Americans, so 
that we can claim the rights our citizens have all over the 
world. 

Leaving the State Department, we walk through the 
beautiful park at the south to the marble palace of the Pan 
American Union, which has to do with the sister republics 
of North and South America. Its aim is to increase the 
friendly relations between the peoples of the two continents 
and to further everything connected with their commerce 
and trade. Each of the republics has its own representative 

13 



14 



SOUTH AMERICA 



at Washington, and here we can learn many things we ought 
to know before starting out. 

Now we have entered the building, have passed through 
the great marble court roofed with glass, where palm trees 
and other tropical plants are growing, and are standing 
in the rear of the hall, on the floor of which is one -of the 




Building of the Pan American Union, a society organized to pro- 
mote acquaintance and friendly relations between the United States 
and the Latin Republics of America. 



largest relief maps in the world. This map represents 
South America as it might look to one if he stood upon 
the moon and had a telescope so powerful that he could see 
the whole continent at one glance. The map would more 
than cover the floor of the largest schoolroom, and it shows 
the mountains and plains and the rivers and lakes of our 
great sister continent. 



INTRODUCTION 15 

But first let us see just where South America lies on the 
earth. We go to the globe and run our fingers around it 
along the equator. We see that the most of South America 
lies south of that fine and that much of it is in the southern 
hemisphere. In that respect it is like Africa, although it 
extends much farther south than either Australia or Africa. 
It comes nearest the South Pole of all the inhabited conti- 
nents. 

Dividing the globe again into halves, and this time at 
right angles with the equator, we observe that South 
America lies in the western hemisphere. It is a part of the 
new world that Columbus discovered when he started 
westward from Europe looking for a shorter way to India. 
He landed on the West India Islands in 1492, and it was 
not until six years later that he coasted the mainland of 
South America near the mouth of the Orinoco River. He 
traveled along the northern shores of South America again 
in 1502, and before that time Pinzon had entered the mouth 
of the Amazon, and Americus Vespucius had gone along 
the east coast of South America as far as the mouth of the 
Rio de la Plata. In the meantime, John Cabot and others 
had discovered parts of North America. 

As we look at North and South America on the globe 
we see that South America lies far to the east of North 
America. Indeed, their positions are such that if we should 
take an airplane here at Washington and fly straight 
southward we would strike South America a little east 
of the Panama Canal, and if we flew on south, passing 
through Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, we would soon 
find ourselves out over the Pacific Ocean with a large 
part of the continent stretching away to the eastward. 
Much of the Pacific coast of South America is farther east 
than Philadelphia or New York. 



T 6 SOUTH AMERICA 

By looking at the globe we can compare the continents 
and get some idea of the enormous country we are about 
to explore. South America contains about one eighth of 
all the land on earth. If we should divide all the land 
on the globe into eighty-acre farms, ten acres in each 
farm would belong to South America. The continent is 
smaller than Asia, Africa, or North America, but it is 
larger than all Europe with the main body of the United 
States added thereto. 

Moreover, it has no great deserts like Africa or Asia, 
and no vast wastes such as the northern part of North 
America, which is locked in cold and darkness for most of 
the year. Except on the highest peaks of the Andes, 
South America has no region of perpetual ice, and even 
at the far south about the Strait of Magellan the land is 
so tempered by the winds from the ocean that the sheep 
feed out of doors all the year round. It is true that three 
fourths of the continent is in the torrid zone, but much of 
the land near the equator is so high above the level of the 
sea that the climate is as temperate as in many parts of 
our country. 

The fact that most of the continent lies south of the. 
equator makes the seasons there directly the opposite of 
ours. It is now winter here in Washington, but as soon 
as we go south of the equator we shall be in the summer, 
and if we continue our journey until fall it will be while 
our friends at home are having their spring. We shall 
see also that at high noon our shadows fall to the south. 
Can you tell why ? 

Leaving the globe, we stroll about the relief map as it 
lies on the floor, observing how like South America is to 
our own continent of North America in shape and surface. 
Each continent is roughly triangular. Each has a long 



INTRODUCTION 17 

system of highlands running along the Pacific coast and 
another range of lower highlands near the east coast, with a 
wide plain or central lowland between them. The Andes 
corresponds to our great western highlands, and the high- 
lands of Guiana (ge-a'na) and eastern Brazil are somewhat 
like our Appalachian Mountains. The eastern highlands of 
North America are broken by a great river, the St. Lawrence, 
and those of South America by another great river, the 
Amazon. The Amazon basin compares somewhat with 
that of the Great Lakes in situation. Both slope to the 
east and break through highlands. The Rio de la Plata 
(re'o da la pla/ta) basin is not unlike the Mississippi valley. 

The natural features o£ South America are grander than 
those of North America. The Andes are higher than the 
Rockies and. they have a score of volcanoes, each of which 
is more than a mile higher than the top of Pikes Peak. 
Mount Aconcagua (a-kon-ka/gwa) is more than a half mile 
higher than Mount McKinley, the highest point on the 
North American continent. 

The earth has no river system that compares in size 
with the Amazon, whose navigable tributaries, if joined 
together, would reach around the globe. On the Rio 
de la Plata we can go north by steamers for a greater 
distance than from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson Bay, 
ancl the Amazon, Orinoco, and La Plata systems, taken 
together, drain more country than the whole of the United 
States, including Alaska. Indeed, most of South America 
is a well-watered country, and much of it has the climate 
and soil which will some day make it the home of a large 
part of the world's population. 

During our stay at the Pan American Union we learn 
much about the resources of South America and how 
closely its people are connected with us in industry and 




South America. Relief and drainage. 



INTRODUCTION 19 

trade. Many of our farmers use the nitrates from the 
South American desert to fertilize their crops. Our finest 
rubber comes from the wild trees of the Amazon basin, 
and almost all the coffee we drink is grown in Brazil. 
The most of our chocolate comes from the cacao trees of 
Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. Some of us may 
have a product of Argentina under our feet, for it is from 
that region that come many of the hides from which our 
leather is made. We import wool and meat from the 
Rio de la Plata basin. We get some of our tin from Bolivia, 
and considerable copper from Peru and Chile. We have 
diamonds from Brazil and emeralds from Colombia. In- 
deed, there is hardly a state of South America that does 
not supply us with materials of one kind or another, and 
we shall learn that the South Americans are using more 
and more of the things we raise and the manufactures we 
make for export to other nations. 

But what kind of people are these among whom we are 
going to travel? We can see something of them in the 
photographs of the various countries and cities in the 
library of the Pan American Union. Most of the South 
Americans are of the white race and they dress much 
as we do. There are also some negroes in Brazil, and 
many Indians in their different stages of savagery and 
civilization scattered over the continent. The Indians 
are the descendants of those who inhabited South America 
at the time Columbus first set foot on the northern shores 
of the continent. The negroes were brought from Africa 
as slaves, but they were afterwards freed and now have 
the same rights as the whites. The white population is 
composed of the descendants of the Spaniards and Portu- 
guese who conquered the Indians and of those who inter- 
married with the Indians, forming a new race, as it were. 



20 SOUTH AMERICA 

During our travels we shall find that the South Ameri- 
cans have a civilization and customs similar to ours. 
They have farms and factories and all sorts of industries. 
They have many magnificent cities with the latest of modern 
improvements, including schools much like our own. They 
are building railways and beginning to develop their 
enormous resources. Most of the republics have govern- 
ments like ours, and nearly »all of them are growing in 
population, industry, and wealth. But we shall see all 
this better as we go on with our travels. 

i. Why do we need passports? Why must we take the oath of 
allegiance? Why are our photographs and signatures needed? 
Make out a passport for yourself. (See illustration.) 

2. What is the Pan American Union? 

3. Locate South America on the globe — as to oceans — as to 
continents. Describe its surface from the relief map. Compare with 
North America. What highlands in South America remind us of 
the Rockies? Of the Appalachians? What great river have we 
that compares with the Amazon ? 

4. How large is South America ? Compare it in size with North 
America ; Europe ; Asia ; the United States. How many coun- 
tries has it ? Which is the largest ? The smallest ? Which ones 
are north of the equator? South? Compare each country with 
an American state. Compare the population of South America 
with that of the United States. . (See Tables III and V.) • 

5. What climates has South America? In what zone does most 
of it lie? When we are having winter at home what is the season 
in South America south of the equator ? Why ? Why is it not cold 
in the southernmost part of the continent ? 

6. In what latitude do you live? Take an airplane trip directly- 
south and find if you could reach South America. If so, what part 
of the continent ? 

7. What do we buy of South America? Mention some South 
American products we use almost every day. 

8. What three races of people live in South America ? What race 
was there when Columbus first landed ? From where did the whites 
and negroes come? 



FROM NEW YORK TO PANAMA 



21 



II. FROM NEW YORK TO PANAMA 

WE have left Washington, have come to New York, 
and are now on a great white steamer bound for 
the Isthmus of Panama. The ship has already finished 
loading its cargo, and we make our way in and out among 




the men who are wheeling on board the bags containing 
the South American mails. 

A moment later the bugle blows to notify all who are 
not going with us to leave. There are farewell kisses and 



FROM NEW YORK TO PANAMA 23 

hurried good-bys. The engines throb, and as we wave 
our handkerchiefs to our friends on the wharf, our boat 
moves slowly out into the East River and past the 
statue of Liberty, through the harbor of New York. 
Within a short time the city has passed out of view, and 
as evening falls we stand at the stern of the steamer and 
watch the lights of Sandy Hook fade away into the dark- 
ness, realizing that we shall not see our native land for 
many months to come. 

It is about two thousand miles from New York to 
Cristobal (kris-to-bal') at the mouth of the Panama Canal, 
but our ship does not go so fast as the big steamers which 
cross the Atlantic to Europe, and it will take almost six days 
for our voyage. It is now winter. There was snow on the 
streets of New York when we left, and we have on our 
heaviest clothing. The first day out is cold and bracing, 
and we spend the time in learning our steamer. It is a 
steel vessel, five hundred feet long and sixty feet wide, and 
it has a speed of about fifteen knots an hour. 

Our cabins are on the top deck, and we can look out of 
our windows when we wake in the morning and see the 
blue ocean rising and falling under our eyes. There are 
many whitecaps on the waves and the billows seem to be 
chasing one another over the sea. Each cabin is about 
the size of the smallest hall bedroom. It has two berths, 
one over the other, on the wall at the back, and opposite 
them are two windows which look out on the sea. We 
have room under the berths for our low steamer trunks, 
and at the end opposite the door is a washstand set into 
the wall with pockets for our combs, brushes, and other 
toilet articles. We have hot and cold water at all hours 
of the day. The cabin has an electric light, and also an 
electric fan which we can set whizzing by pressing a button. 



24 SOUTH AMERICA 

We shall need that fan for it will be warm when we ap- 
proach the equator. 

Our ship is a United States vessel and flies the American 
flag. The sailors are from different parts of New England 
and our captain is a Yankee from Maine. At high noon 
every day he makes an observation, telling by the sun 
just where we are, and a little later we all rush to the 
cabin to learn how many miles we have gone in the past 
twenty-four hours. 

Our first course is almost straight south. We are soon 
opposite Atlantic City, and from there we go on, passing 
Cape May, Cape Charles, and Cape Henry, but out of 
sight of them. It is on the second day that we reach 
Cape Hatteras and start across the Gulf Stream, that 
mighty river in the Atlantic which is three thousand times 
as great as the Mississippi in volume. There are patches 
of gulf weed floating about in it. Some of them look like 
green sponges upon the blue water and some like shawls 
of green lace work spread over the sea. 

The air has now grown warm and moist. We have a 
sailor dip up some of the water and find it warmer than 
that in which we have been sailing, and when we take our 
baths in the morning they are as warm as our swimming 
pools in midsummer at home. We travel more than a 
hundred miles in crossing the Gulf Stream, observing that 
the air is cooler as we pass out of it on the edge of the 
Caribbean Sea. 

But why do we not keep in the stream and be warm all 
the way? You will easily see when you remember how 
hard it is to row a boat against a strong current. The 
Gulf Stream flows north at the rate of three miles an hour, 
and we are going as fast as we can to the south. If we 
should keep in the Stream, we should have to steam against 



FROM NEW YORK TO PANAMA 25 

this three-mile current and would lose at least three miles 
an hour. 

But what is that away off to our right ? It seems little 
more than a blue ^peck in the distance. That is San 
Salvador (san sal-va-dor'), one of the most famous islands of 
the world. It is the first land that Columbus saw when he 
discovered America. When he first stood upon San 
Salvador he thought it an island off the east coast of Asia 
and did not realize that he had found a new world. We 
can see the lighthouse on the island plainly as we go by. 
There are palm trees near it, and if we could stop we should 
find the vegetation much like that of Florida. San 
Salvador is one of the Bahama Islands. It produces 
fruits, grains, and roots in abundance, and it is as rich 
now as when Columbus came there and saw the first 
Indians ever met by white men. 

A little farther south we pass Bird Rock, another of the 
Bahamas, and still farther south the coast of eastern 
Cuba comes into view, with the purple mountains of Haiti 
in plain sight on the opposite side of the ship. We sail 
between these two islands for hours. We pass our naval 
station of Guantanamo (gwan-tan'a-mo) , near Santiago 
(san-te-a/go) in Cuba, where our war vessels guard this 
passage on the way to the canal, and then go out over 
the blue waters of the Caribbean. 

The sea is now like glass. The sun is quite hot at noon, 
but during the rest of the day the air is soft, warm, and 
pleasant. It is much like a June day in Ohio or Virginia. 
We put on our thin linen clothes and enjoy the tropical 
seas. After leaving Cuba we sail for two days with no 
land in sight. There are but few ships, and the only 
moving things upon the water are the white gulls which 
hover about us, and the schools of silvery flying-fish which 



26 SOUTH AMERICA 

dart from wave to wave, one now and then jumping too 
high and lighting on our deck in its flight. 

But listen, the captain is calling ! He tells us that we 
are approaching the Isthmus of Panama, that wonderful 
strip of earth which ties North America and South America 
together. We rush to the prow of the ship and look toward 
the west. A thin line of hazy blue seems to be floating 
up out of the water at the horizon. Now the blue deepens. 
It rises in a range of low mountains, while little green 
islands seem to bob out of the sea in front of our steamer. 

Now we are closer. That tall shaft at the right is the 
Toro lighthouse, and the buildings and docks at the left 
are those of Cristobal at the eastern entrance to the Panama 
Canal. Beside Cristobal is Colon (ko-lon') , the old town on 
this side of the isthmus. We can see the coconut palm trees 
shading the houses. They extend down to the shore and 
their fan-like leaves, moving to and fro in the breeze, seem 
to be waving to us a welcome to Panama. 

i. How do we go to South America? Describe our journey. 

2. How far is it from New York to Panama? How long does it 
take us? Make a list of the places we pass on the way. Suppose 
we went from New York along the east coast of South America, how 
far would we travel to Rio de Janeiro? To Buenos Aires? To 
Panama via the Strait of Magellan? 

3. Why does the captain take observations of the sun? 

4. What is the Gulf Stream? How long does it take us to cross 
it at the rate of fifteen miles per hour ? 

5. Trace Columbus' journey on the map from Palos near Gibraltar 
to San Salvador. 

6. Locate Cuba and Haiti on the map. 

7. Where is Guantanamo? Why is it an important place on the 
route to Panama? Why do we need to guard the way into the 
Caribbean Sea? What great naval battle took place near Santiago? 
What brave deed was done by a naval officer in a narrow strait 
there ? 



PANAMA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN 27 

III. PANAMA AND THE PACIFIC OCEAN 

WE shall steam through the Isthmus of Panama within 
a very few hours. The first white marr who crossed 
it took twenty-nine days, and his journey has made him 
famous as one of the world's great explorers. It was but 
a few years after South America was discovered. In his 
first voyage Columbus had touched only at the West 
Indies, and it was not until 1498 that he set foot on the 
mainland of the continent not far from the mouth of the 
Orinoco River. Within the next six years he had coasted 
the country from Mexico to Venezuela, and other explorers, 
including Americus Vespucius, for whom America was 
named, had gone along the east coast as far south as the 
mouth of the Rio de la Plata. In the meantime, John 
and Sebastian Cabot had visited the shores of New England, 
and a great land was known to lie at the north. 

Everywhere along this vast stretch of coast the ex- 
plorers were looking for a waterway through to India and 
Japan. They still supposed that America was a part of 
Asia and did not know that a new world was discovered. 
Expedition after expedition was sent out from Europe to 
find out more about the country, cind among the most 
daring of the adventurers was a young Spaniard named 
Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who came with a party to the 
Gulf of Darien, not far east of where we are now. Here 
he founded a settlement, married the daughter of an 
Indian chief, and went about trading for gold. 

One day when he was weighing some gold that he was 
about to buy, one of the chiefs struck the scales with his 
fist, scattering the precious metal upon the ground, and 
said: "If this is what you prize so much that you are 
ready to leave your homes and risk your lives for it, I can 



28 SOUTH AMERICA 

tell you of a land where gold is so common that the people 
use it instead of pottery for their bowls and cups." 

The chief spoke of Peru, a country which was then rich 
in gold, and in which we shall travel by and by. His 
words excited Balboa. He questioned the Indians, and 
was told that over the mountains was a sea so great that 
no one had ever come to its end, and that the land of gold 
lay to the southward on the shores of that sea. 

Balboa decided to find out if this story was true, and 
early in September, 15 13, he started with about two hun- 
dred men and a small pack of bloodhounds to make his 
way over the mountains. He soon had a fight with the 
Indians, but they were frightened at the guns and dogs. 
He conquered them and persuaded them to act as his 
guides. He then cut his way through the thick forests 
to the top of the range, and there, on the twenty-fifth day 
of September, 15 13, was able to look out over the great 
expanse of water which we call the Pacific Ocean. Four 
days later he had cut a path through the jungle down the 
south slope and with sword in hand had rushed into the 
water up to his waist, claiming the sea and all it contained 
for the king of Spain. This was seven years before Ferdi- 
nand Magellan had sailed from the Atlantic into the Pacific. 
Ocean, through the strait named after him at the southern 
end of the continent. 

The Isthmus of Panama is not large. The neck of an 
hour glass is not so narrow in comparison with the globes 
above and below it, as is this little strip of land with the 
continents of North America and South America which it 
joins. If the country were level, we could walk across its 
narrowest part in a day, and with an airplane we could fly 
over the mountains from ocean to ocean in less than an hour. 
Yes, the isthmus is narrow, but until we built the canal from 



Atlant/ C CEa 




OCEAN 



Relief Map of the Panama Canal. 
29 



3 o SOUTH AMERICA 

one side to the other it formed a wall against the commerce 
of the world. All ships going from the Atlantic westward 
into the Pacific had to sail many thousands of miles out of 
their courses in traveling around South America, and there 
was no short cut from ocean to ocean. The necessity of 
a canal was seen shortly after Balboa discovered the Pacific, 
and he suggested that one might be made through the 
mountains at Darien some distance east of where the 
Panama Canal now is. Thirty-eight years later King 
Philip II of Spain was urged to dig such a canal, and it is 
now several hundred years since Antonio Galvo, a Portu- 
guese, wrote a book showing that canals might be made 
through Nicaragua, or Panama, or through the Isthmus of 
Darien. Other plans were made from time to time, but 
it was not until 1879, ten years after the Suez Canal was 
completed, that any real work was begun. 

At that time Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French engineer 
who built the Suez Canal, made surveys of the Isthmus of 
Panama, and a great company was formed to cut through 
the land from one side to the other. Their plan was to 
make a sea level canal, and for a time it seemed as if one might 
be constructed within a few years. Many thousands of men 
were employed, shiploads of machinery were brought across 
the ocean from France, and vast sums of money were spent. 

But the work soon proved to be greater than De Lesseps 
had thought, and the money was all gone before one third 
of the canal was dug. Later on another French company 
took hold and continued the digging for a few years. It 
also became discouraged and sold to the United States the 
rights which it had bought from Colombia to build the 
canal. That was in 1904, and within ten years from that 
time we had completed the canal that now connects the 
two oceans. 



WE STEAM THROUGH THE CANAL 31 

IV. WE STEAM THROUGH THE CANAL 

OUR canal is not a great ditch cut through the isthmus 
at sea level from ocean to ocean. The waters of the 
Atlantic and Pacific oceans do not come together, and there 
is no salt water in the canal where it crosses the mountains. 
The canal is really a bridge from ocean to ocean formed by 
the fresh waters of the Chagres (cha'gres) River. It is a 
lock canal. The huge vessels steam in on salt water to the 
locks situated where the land rises on the Atlantic and 
Pacific sides of the isthmus. The fresh water is then let into 
the locks and lifts the vessels up step by step, until they are 
raised as high above the sea as the roof of an eight-story 
house. They are then able to steam into the wide and deep 
canal which has been cut across the isthmus. Then, by 
means of the locks at the opposite end, they are lowered 
gently to sea level again. 

The canal goes through the great mountain chain which 
runs along the western side of our hemisphere from Alaska 
to the Strait of Magellan. These mountains begin at the 
Arctic Ocean and run almost to the Antarctic Ocean. 
We know of them in the Rockies and in the plateaus of 
Mexico and Central America. In South America they are 
the Andes. The range is lowest at the Isthmus of Panama, 
where the tallest of the peaks is not half a mile high. Where 
the canal crosses the mountains the land is only five hundred 
feet high, or about as high as the Washington Monument. 
It is only forty miles from coast to coast, but from deep 
water in the Atlantic Ocean to deep water in the Pacific 
it is about fifty miles. 

The canal has, therefore, a length of fifty miles. Its 
bottom has a width of from three hundred to five hundred 
feet, and the depth is about forty-five feet. For twenty- 



32 SOUTH AMERICA 

four miles the channel winds its way through Lake Gatun 
(ga-toon') , whose surface is eighty-five feet above the level 
of the ocean. The lake has an area of about one hundred 
and twenty square miles. It is formed by the Gatun dam, 
which we have built between two hills on the banks 
of the Chagres River. The dam holds back the waters 
of the Chagres, and by means of the locks on one side of it 
the ships are lifted up and down so that they can pass into 
or out of the lake. On the other side of the lake the 
mountains are five hundred feet above the level of the sea, 
but we have dug a wide ditch through them down to about 
forty feet above sea level so that the surface of the waters 
flowing through is at the same level as that of the lake. 
This ditch is known as the Culebra (koo-la/bra) cut. At 
the western end of it there are locks which raise and lower 
the vessels from and to the Pacific. 

The work of making the canal was enormous. We shall 
not realize how great as we sail through. Nature has clad 
the sides of the ditch and the dam with tropical vegetation, 
and the canal now looks to be thousands of years old. It 
seems like a natural valley through hills unchanged since 
the creation of the world. 

I visited the canal many times while it was building and 
the comparisons which follow were figured out by the 
engineers during the construction. The Culebra cut 
through the mountains required the blasting down and 
carrying away of so much earth and rock that it would 
equal a ditch three feet wide, three feet deep, and almost 
sixty thousand miles long. It would more than fill a ditch 
of that size reaching twice around the world at the equator 
and leave so much over that it would fill a hole through the 
center of the earth big enough for a Newfoundland dog to 
crawl through! The Gatun dam contains so much earth 



WE STEAM THROUGH THE CANAL 33 

and rock that it would take twice as many horses as there 
are in all the United States to haul the stuff if it were loaded 
on wagons. The locks on the canal have twelve great 
gates made of steel, which weigh fifty-eight thousand tons, 
and each gate has two doors made of steel plates fastened 
together by more than six million rivets. 

At times as many as fifty thousand workmen were 
employed on the canal, and in one year the food required 
for them included five million loaves of bread, nine million 
pounds of meat, one million pounds of onions, and one 
thousand carloads of rice. The cost of making the canal, 
including that of the fortifications, was over four hundred 
million dollars. 

The first vessel to pass through the canal was a steamer 
of ten thousand tons. It was the Ancon, belonging to the 
United States government, and it made the trip in nine 
hours. Its course was from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
and the journey it accomplished, had there been no canal, 
would have required a trip around South America of about 
thirty-five days. That was on August 15, 1914. Within 
the next three months more than two hundred vessels 
carrying over a million tons of freight were thus lifted over 
from ocean to ocean, and ever since then a procession of 
steamers loaded with passengers and goods has been 
moving back and forth over this great artificial waterway. 
The number steadily increases, and the freight now passing 
through amounts to many millions of tons every year. 
The traffic is growing so fast that we may some day have 
to build a second canal through the isthmus or perhaps 
through Central America. 

Indeed, it is hard to realize the saving in time and dis- 
tance created by this short cut from ocean to ocean. Dur- 
ing our Spanish War we needed one of our battleships 




34 



WE STEAM THROUGH THE CANAL 35 

then in the Pacific to aid us in the Atlantic, and this vessel, 
the Oregon, had to steam from San Francisco to the southern 
end of South America and pass through the Strait of Ma- 
gellan to come to New York. The distance that way is 
more than thirteen thousand miles. By the Panama 
Canal it is a little more than five thousand miles, and the 
saving in time is three or four weeks. The canal will be 
of great value in sending our ships from one coast to the 
other in time of war. In 191 9, after the World War in 
Europe, the entire Pacific fleet of .the United States navy 
passed through the canal from the Atlantic Ocean to the 
Pacific within a few days. 

By the canal, Honolulu is seven thousand miles nearer 
New York than by the Strait of Magellan, and the saving' 
in going to Manila is almost one thousand miles more. 
The west coast of South America has been brought almost 
into the front dooryard of our Atlantic seaports. Guaya- 
quil (gwl-a-kel'), Ecuador, is now seven thousand miles 
nearer New York. New Orleans is nearer to Peru than 
to any port of Great Britain. 

But we shall appreciate the canal better as our vessel 
goes through it. We steam past the Toro lighthouse 
inside the great breakwaters, built to defend the canal from 
the storms of the Caribbean Sea, and enter Limon (le-mon') 
Bay. We pass Cristobal, with its statue of De Lesseps 
on the point and the coconut trees half hiding the houses, 
and enter the ditch, steaming on until at seven miles from 
the breakwaters we come to what, at first, look like huge 
fortifications of white stone with a long wall of green sod 
on each side of them. The wall of green is the Gatun 
dam, and what seem to be forts are really the mighty 
locks of concrete which will raise us by three steps to the 
level of Gatun Lake. 




36 



WE STEAM THROUGH THE CANAL 37 

As we approach, the iron gate of the first lock opens and 
we steam into a chamber, the walls of which extend high 
above the deck of our vessel. Now the gate closes. The 
water bursts through the floor of the lock. It is boiling 
and bubbling, and our steamer is rising. The deck is soon 
high above the walls, and we are floating on the level of 
the water of the second lock chamber. The huge, steel 
gate in front of us slowly opens, and our steamer is towed 
by the electric locomotives, which run along the top of the 
locks, into this second chamber. There are four loco- 
motives. Two are fastened to the front of the vessel, 
moving it onward; and the other two are on the tracks 
at the rear holding it so that it can go only so fast and no 
faster. 

Now the gate behind us has closed. The water flows 
in from the bottom and again our ship rises until 
we are on the level of the third lock. We are towed into 
this, and in a similar way are raised to the level of Lake 
Gatun. We are now eighty-five feet above the waters of 
the Atlantic, and we shall move on at this level across 
the isthmus until we reach the locks through which we shall 
descend into the Pacific. 

The voyage across the lake is delightful. Our course 
winds in and out among beautiful islands, and we now and 
then pass floating islands, patches of the tropical swamp 
which have been lifted from their beds by the floods of the 
Chagres River and are carried by the winds here and there 
over the lake. Some of these islands are several acres in 
area. They rise and fall on the waves made by our steamer 
as we go by. Here and there we see dead trees rising out 
of the lake. Some are as white as the bones of a skeleton, 
and others green with the orchids and other air plants with 
which they are loaded. 



38 SOUTH AMERICA 

The islands and the shores of the lake are a tropical 
jungle with palms of many varieties rising above it. Here 
and there we see strange birds in the trees. Some of them 
have gorgeous plumage, and among them are blue and white 
herons with aigrettes of beautiful feathers high on their heads. 
There are also ducks and pelicans swimming on the water. 
The pelicans are huge birds with great bags in their throats 
in which they store the fish they catch until they need them 
for food. On one island we see two alligators sunning them- 
selves on the edge of the water. 

Now we have crossed the lake and have steamed by the 
place where the Chagres River flows in. Just opposite 
the mouth of the Chagres is the highest point on the Canal 
Zone. It is seven hundred and fifty feet high. The canal 
has now narrowed to three hundred feet. We are entering 
the Culebra cut where the greatest of the excavations were 
made. The hills are now high above us and we are in a 
narrow channel steaming along between sloping walls of 
the greenest of green. The rock and earth which once 
formed the banks of the canal are now covered with grass 
and flowers. Palm trees and fern trees have grown up 
here and there, and we are sailing through a garden of 
tropical wonders. There are but few marks of the steam 
shovels and other great engineering machines which aided 
in digging this part of the canal. 

We steam for nine miles through the cut, and then come 
to the lock of Pedro Miguel (pa/dro me-gel') which drops us 
thirty feet into beautiful Lake Miraflores (me'ra-flo'ras). 
It is much smaller than Lake Gatun, and we soon cross 
it to the locks on the opposite side, which, by two steps, 
lower us to the level of the channel through which we sail 
out to Balboa (bal-bo'a), the port on the Pacific Ocean. 
There is a huge breakwater at Balboa, and the sea beyond 



WE STEAM THROUGH THE CANAL 39 

it is spotted with islands which stand like sentinels guarding 
the works. Fortifications have been built upon one of them 
just beyond the breakwater, and we have mighty guns there 
to guard the canal. There are also fortifications on islands 
near the Atlantic entrance, and hidden forts in the jungle 
which lines the waterway in places, so that it will be easy 
to defend the canal in time of war. 

1. Tell in your own words the story of the discovery of the Pacific 
Ocean by Balboa and by Magellan. 

2. Describe the Isthmus of Panama. Why is it the best place for 
the Panama Canal? Show the saving in miles made by the canal 
in the distance between ten great ports of the world. Contrast the 
routes from Callao and Valparaiso to Liverpool, Havre, and 
Gibraltar, via the Strait of Magellan and the Panama Canal. From 
the same ports to New York, Boston, and New Orleans. Take a 
trip from Rio de Janeiro to Shanghai via the Suez Canal. Via the 
Panama Canal. (See Tables I and II.) 

3. Who first tried to build the canal ? Why did they not succeed? 
Write a description of your trip through the canal. Explain how 
ships can be raised and lowered by means of the water in the locks. 
Is the water which raises the ships fresh or salt? Why? 

4. Give some of the advantages of the canal to the commerce of 
the world — of our eastern and western states. Why is it of great 
value to us in time of war? 

5. How does the canal affect our islands in the Pacific Ocean? 
Make a voyage from New York to Hawaii, the Philippines, and 
Samoa, by the canal. By the Strait of Magellan. By Suez. How 
long is each voyage and how much time would you spend on the 
way? 

6. How long is the Canal? How wide? How deep? 

7. Compare the Panama with the Suez Canal. (See Carpenter's 
"Africa.") With the St. Mary's Canal. (See Carpenter's " North 
America.") With the Manchester ship canal. The Kiel canal. 
(See Carpenter's " Europe.") Why do we need forts at Panama? 



4o 



SOUTH AMERICA 



V. THE REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA 



WE are sailing southward this morning upon the 
mighty Pacific. We left Balboa two days ago, going 
out just as the sun was setting over the islands of Flamenco, 
Perico, and Naos. We sailed past those islands, turned 
southward, and are now a little north of the equator, mov- 
ing along the coast 
of Colombia. We 
are in the doldrums 
or zone of equatorial 
calms where there is 
so little wind that it 
is sometimes difficult 
for sailing vessels to 
cross it on their way 
to or from our canal. 
The air is almost still 
and the sea seems to 
steam. How bright 
the sun is and how 
dazzling! It darts 
its rays down and 
millions of diamonds are dancing upon the waves under 
our eyes. We wink and blink as we look. The reflected 
rays of the sun here are brighter than its rays in July at 
our homes. 

Stand with me at the side of the ship and look out 
toward the west. Notice how the blue waves stretch on 
and on until they lose themselves in the sky. That water 
extends westward for ten thousand miles until it wraps 
itself around the Philippine Islands off the coast of Asia. 
We are near where the Pacific is widest. It is the greatest 




SCALE OF 
5 l35 



THE REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA 41 

of the oceans, and it holds two fifths of all the salt water 
on earth. It is now crossed by many trade routes whose 
focus is the Isthmus of Panama, and all the countries on 
the west coast of South America are sending their goods 
northward to take advantage of this short cut into the 
Atlantic. 

But what is that cackling and crowing and quacking 
we hear ? Can that be the baa of a lamb ? Was not that 
the moo of a cow? We rub our eyes to see if we are not 
dreaming. This voyage of ours must be a mistake, and 
we are surely back near one of the farmyards in the country 
at home. 

Np, it is not a mistake. The noise of the fowls comes 
from those two-storied coops on the deck. You can see 
the chickens and geese poking their heads through the slats. 
The bleating and mooing is from sheep and cattle kept 
in stalls two floors below. They are carried to furnish 
the meat for our tables. 

What a noise the creatures make ! We are awakened 
by them every morning and hardly know where we are 
until the cabin boy brings in our breakfast. It consists 
of a small cup of coffee and one or two slices of bread, and, 
protest as we may, we cannot have more until eleven o'clock. 
This is the custom throughout South America. Between 
eleven and one they have a second breakfast, which is 
much like our luncheon, and their dinner is at about six 
in the evening. We grumble at first, but soon find it as 
pleasant as our way of eating at home. 

Now the steamer has slowed up and turned to the east. 
We are sailing into one of the ports of Colombia. There 
are palm trees and bamboos on the coast, and the dense 
vegetation behind is much like that of the isthmus. There 
is a town situated on a little island at the head of a bay 



42 



SOUTH AMERICA 



which forms an excellent harbor. It is composed of 
thatched huts and of one- and two-story white buildings 
covered with plaster and roofed with red tiles. There 

are some sailing 
vessels at anchor in 
the harbor, and 
many small boats in 
which dark-skinned 
men are rowing out 
to our steamer. 
We are now in the 
Bay of Buenaven- 
tura (bwa-na-ven- 
too'ra) , and from 
here we shall make 
a long tour through 
Colombia. 

The country is 
so vast that we can- 
not expect to visit 
it all. Colombia is 
as long from north 
to south as from St. 
Paul to New Or- 
leans, and its area 
is about ten times 
as large as the state 
of Pennsylvania. 
The land is one of mountains and plains. The Andes run 
through it in three high ranges, and between them are some 
of the most fertile river valleys of all South America. To 
the east of the mountains, sloping down to the basins of 
the Orinoco and the Amazon, are vast plains which fur- 




The bright yellow pods of the cacao tree 
grow along the branches. They contain 
the seeds from which chocolate and cocoa 
are made. 



THE REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA 43 

nish pasture for millions of cattle and sheep ; and agricul- 
ture thrives on the plateaus and in the high valleys. Down 
here on the seacoast the climate is tropical and the ther- 
mometer often rises to more than one hundred degrees 
above zero. On the high peaks of the Andes the snow 
and ice never melt, while in the lofty valleys and plateaus 
it is temperate all the year round. 

We shall observe the differences in climate as we make 
our way over the country. We take the little narrow- 
gauge railroad which extends from Buenaventura into the 
interior, and then go on mules over the hills into the valley 
of the Cauca (kou'ka) River. This is one of the most fertile 
regions of Colombia, and it is typical of the rich Andean 
valleys. It is an almost level plain about two hundred miles 
long and twenty miles wide, through which runs a beautiful 
stream navigated by small steamers. The soil of the plain 
is fertile, and the country is covered with plantations of 
sugar cane, cotton, coffee, and the cacao from which our 
chocolate is made. There are great fields of bananas and 
large orange groves. There are many lemon trees, and 
we make lemonade of the fruit which we pick from the 
branches. 

We stay one day with a farmer who takes us through his 
cacao plantation. He has thousands of trees, and we ride 
with him through one orchard after another. How beauti- 
ful everything is ! The cacao trees look like lilac bushes, 
except that they are from fifteen to thirty feet high. They 
are ragged and gnarly with leaves of bright green. The 
cacao fruit is so large that if it lay on the ground you might 
think it a little squash or a big ripe cucumber. It is of 
a bright lemon color streaked with red. Its stem is at- 
tached to the trunk and large limbs, and not to the ends 
of twigs like apples or pears. 



44 SOUTH AMERICA 

To show us, the planter chops one of the pods in two 
with a knife. It has a thick skin, and inside this is a 
white pulp in which are imbedded about thirty dark-brown 
seeds much like large lima beans. From these seeds are 
made the chocolate and cocoa of commerce. 

The fruit is gathered when ripe and the seeds are washed 
out of the pulp. They are dried in the sun and shipped 
to factories in different parts of the world. In the factories 
they are ground, and from their meal, after several processes 
which take out some of the oil, the pure chocolate is made. 
From the seed hulls, in much the same way, comes the 
cocoa. 

In another part of the plantation we learn how the trees 
are grown. The seeds are first planted in hills about 
fifteen feet apart, three seeds being put in each hill. They 
soon sprout, and at first look not unlike small orange trees. 
They are cultivated and the weeds are kept down. After 
three or four years they begin to produce fruit, and con- 
tinue to yield for thirty years and more. 

We shall see many cacao trees in other parts of Colombia. 
Most of the cacao of the world is grown in Africa and 
South America, and this product is one of the principal 
exports of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Brazil. 
Much of the chocolate we drink or eat in cakes and candies 
comes from the valley of the Cauca. Some of it is carried 
over the mountains to Buenaventura, from which port it 
goes by way of the Panama Canal to New York. Some 
is shipped down the Cauca River and through the Magda- 
lena (mag-da-la/na) River to the Caribbean Sea, and thence 
to our country. 

The people of the Cauca valley are noted for their 
hospitality, and their country has been called "The 
Land of the Gentle Yes," because the people hate to 



UP THE MAGDALENA TO BOGOTA 45 

say "no" to any request. They are a mixed race of 
Spaniards and Indians. They are simple in their 
tastes, their chief business being farming and fruit raising. 

We visit Cali (ka/le) , which is near the head of the valley 
and its chief commercial center. It is a thriving little city 
with houses of stucco and roofs of red tiles. It is several 
hundred years old, but is rapidly growing. It now has 
electric lights run by the falls of a mountain stream which 
empties into the Cauca. 

Our next trip is down the Cauca River on small 
steamers which carry us into the Magdalena River and 
thence out to the coast. Here we visit the seaports of 
Barranquilla (bar-ran-kel'ya) and Cartagena (kar-ta-ha'na) , 
each of which is several centuries old. Barranquilla is on 
the edge of the delta and is connected with the seaport 
of Sabanilla (sa-ba-neTya) by a railway twenty miles long. 
Cartagena is on the Caribbean Sea, and it has a railway 
to the Magdalena River. Another important seaport, 
as far as the United States is concerned, is Santa Marta, 
which has also a small line of railroad going into the in- 
terior. It is there that we find the enormous banana 
plantations belonging to one of our fruit companies, from 
which vast quantities of bananas are shipped to New York 
and Boston. 

VI. UP THE MAGDALENA TO BOGOTA 

WE have left the seacoast and are again on the wide 
Magdalena River steaming slowly southward into 
the interior of Colombia. Our boat is a stern- wheeler 
much like those on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, but it 
draws only four or five feet of water. Many parts of the 



46 



SOUTH AMERICA 



river are shallow, and we have to steer this way and that 
to avoid the sandbars and islands which are continually 
forming from the material washed down from the Andes. 
The river is wide where we come in from the sea, and big 
ocean vessels go as far inland as Barranquilla. Farther 
south it narrows, but it is often a mile wide, and in the 





,1.' 






M'ri. _^ 


' 


"•* •» _^_!HL 


~~"Osi 




i 


s » SB 




=5=4 


■^T.^.:iv, 


*^S.' ? * "Zs 


: **>^ 


;,:.„^ 










HI |£|pr i! « 


" 







Some of the boats on the Magdalena River are propelled by a wheel 
at the stern, like those on the Ohio and Mississippi. 

lowlands it flows through a tropical jungle where the trees 
are matted together with vines and the palms wave their 
fanlike branches over the water. 

Now we pass a village of thatched huts, about which are 
little groves of bananas, and now go by sandy islands where 
the alligators may be seen sunning themselves. On one 
islet we count eighteen of these monsters asleep on the shore. 
The river is full of fish which often become frightened by 
the steamer and jump high out of the water. Thousands 
of queer-looking birds are to be seen, and we now and then 
frighten a flock of parrots, cranes, pelicans, or flamingoes, 



UP THE MAGDALENA TO BOGOTA 



47 



which flap their great wings as they rise from the river. 
The flamingoes are of a bright pink, and they fly in a rosy 
stream high over our vessel. 

Our fuel is wood, and we have to stop often for a supply 
for the engines at the little stations here and there on the 




Spinning room in a cloth factory, Colombia. 

banks of the river. At such times we get off and walk 
about on the edge of the jungle, cutting canes from the 
clumps of bamboo, gathering orchids, or trying to spear 
some of the big fish for which the Magdalena is noted. 

About a week after leaving Barranquilla, we arrive at 
a port from which a railroad is building to the thriving city 



48 SOUTH AMERICA 

of Medellin (ma-thel-yen') , which lies high up on the moun- 
tains in a rich gold and silver mining region, and a little 
later stop at La Dorado, where we take a railway around 
the rapids to Honda (on'da) . Here we hire mules and climb 
for two days up the hills to the high plateau upon which 
Bogota (bo-go-ta/) is situated. 

Honda is half as far from the mouth of the Magdalena 
as St. Louis is from the Gulf of Mexico, but the river 
extends hundreds of miles beyond so that small steamers 
can go a long distance into southern Colombia. There 
is a considerable fall at the rapids, and they will probably 
be used some day to generate power for manufacturing. 

Bogota is nearly as far from the Caribbean Sea as 
Detroit is from the Atlantic Ocean. The city is more 
than eighty-six hundred feet above the sea level. It is 
higher than Mexico City but lower than La Paz or Quito 
(ke'to), or Lassa, the capital of Tibet. Although it is near 
the equator it has a climate much like our spring all 
the year round. Roses and lilies are always in bloom, and 
beds of blue and white violets load the air with perfume. 
Strawberries are to be had from January to December, 
and in the markets we can buy peaches, apples, and pears, 
as well as the most delicious pineapples, oranges, and 
bananas, which come from the tropical valleys much lower 
down. 

Bogota lies on the eastern edge of a beautiful plateau, 
with its streets climbing the hills at the back. The plateau 
is about sixty miles long and thirty miles wide. It is 
covered with farms and spotted with little white farmhouses 
whose dark-red roofs shine under the sun. It has green 
pastures upon which fat cattle are feeding, many fields of 
potatoes, and great patches of wheat and barley, which 
are rising and falling under the winds. 



UP THE MAGDALENA TO BOGOTA 49 

We spend some time in Bogota. It has nearly one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand inhabitants, most of whom are of 
the mixed Spanish and Indian race. There are also many 
Indians who have come in from the country about. The 
men have on white trousers and shirts, and sometimes 
also a poncho, or blanket, which they wear over their 
shoulders, sticking their heads out through a hole in the 
center. The Indian women wear dark clothes, and nearly 
all have on straw hats like those our boys wear in the 
summer. Many of them carry heavy burdens on their 
backs, held there by straps about their heads or shoulders. 

Most of the citizens of Bogota are white. They are largely 
of Spanish descent, and many of the children have rosy 
cheeks caused by the fresh, bracing air. These people dress 
much as we do, but the women, when they go on the street, 
wear black gowns and have black shawls on their heads. 
Many of the men wear tall hats and nearly all carry canes. 

As we walk about the city we see many fine horses with 
men and boys riding them. There are also ox-carts and 
wagons and countless donkeys with loads on their backs. 
Donkeys and mules are the chief beasts of burden. Bread, 
vegetables, and fruit are carried about from house to house 
upon them, and scores of the little animals are to be seen 
in the market, where they have to wait until their masters 
sell the produce they have brought in from the country. 

Bogota is a Spanish-built town, and its low houses run 
around patios (pat'yos) or little square gardens, so that our 
bedrooms look out upon beautiful flowers. The houses are 
close to the street with strong iron bars over the windows, 
and their outside walls are painted in all the colors of the 
rainbow. Most of the roofs are of red tiles. There are 
many churches. The people are Roman Catholics, and we 
meet priests and nuns as we go through the streets. 



5<d SOUTH AMERICA 

The best part of the city is about the Plaza Bolivar 
(bo-le'var), a beautiful park with gardens of flowers and 
tropical trees. On one side of it is the national capitol, 
or government building, and on another the cathedral. 
On the remaining two sides, with arcades before them, are 
stores containing goods from all parts of the world. There 
are many people shopping, and in the evening the city and 
parks are thronged with men, women, and children. 

Bogota has electric street cars, telephones, and electric 
lights. It has many automobiles and all modern civic 
improvements. Its streets are paved with asphalt, and it 
has several beautiful squares and parks in which are 
statues of the nation's heroes. In the Plaza de Espana 
is the bust of Cervantes, the author of " Don Quixote." The 
city has public libraries, and there are daily newspapers 
printed in Spanish. It is the capital of Colombia, and in 
it are the houses of Congress and the homes and offices of the 
president and other officials. We are told that the republic 
is modeled after the United States and that its government 
is very much like ours. There are many soldiers on the 
streets of Bogota, and we are awakened each morning by 
the trumpeters calling the troops out to drill. There are 
good public schools, and the government has established 
post schools, aviation schools, and schools to teach farming. 
Bogota is sometimes called the Athens of South America. 

There are now automobile roads in many parts of the 
country, and we motor out through a valley underlaid 
with beds of coal to see Tequendama (ta-kan-da/ma) Falls, 
which are within an hour's ride of the capital. These falls 
are three times as high as Niagara, dropping in one perpen- 
dicular plunge four hundred and fifty feet. Their volume 
of water is small compared with that of Niagara, but they 
create the electric power for the city. 



EMERALDS AND PLATINUM 51 

VII. EMERALDS AND PLATINUM 

HOW would you like to have a mine of precious stones 
more valuable than diamonds, or a bed of gravel 
sprinkled with grains of a white metal worth several times 
its weight in gold? We can find both in Colombia. The 
precious stones are emeralds, gems of translucent green 
which are among the most beautiful jewels known, and the 
metal is platinum, of enormous value in the industrial arts. 

We shall see the emerald mines first. Colombia pro- 
duces the purest and most beautiful emeralds from mines 
near Bogota. In ancient times the best emeralds were 
mined in Upper Egypt near the Red Sea. Cleopatra wore 
beautiful stones from that region, and the Emperor Nero 
is said to have had a large Egyptian emerald, which he used 
as an eye glass to view the lions and gladiators fighting 
in the Colosseum. Pliny, the Roman historian, describes 
the statue of a lion on the shores of Cyprus, which had 
emerald eyes so brilliant that when the sun shone on them 
they frightened the fish. 

Shortly after South America was discovered, five great 
emeralds were taken from the Indians of Peru and brought 
back to Spain. One of these had been cut into a rose, 
and the second into a horn ; a third was a fish with golden 
eyes, and the fourth a bell with a pearl for a clapper, while 
the fifth was a tiny cup. So far no mines of emeralds have 
been found in Peru, and those stones may have come from 
Colombia. From here also came the " Duke of Devon- 
shire," one of the most valuable emeralds ever found. 

The purest and most beautiful emeralds are worth far 
more than diamonds of the same size. They are so valuable 
that one of us could carry in his pockets enough to be a 
great fortune. The mines at Muzo (mbo'so), Colombia, 



52 SOUTH AMERICA 

which we shall visit, now belong to the government, and 
the output of one year amounts to hundreds of thousands 
of carats. There are large tracts in which the emeralds 
are found, and it will be many years before the mines are 
exhausted. 

We take the railroad at Bogota and ride several hours to 
the little town of Zipaquira (se'-pa-ke-ra/), where we get 
mules and climb over the hills to the mines. The country 
is rough and the trip takes us three days. We go first 
over a mountain spotted with salt mines, then across a 
cold, dreary plateau, and climb down into a valley which 
is about a mile above the sea level. Here we again see 
how latitude and altitude affect climate. The weather 
is hot and there are orange groves and coffee plantations. 
The next day it is bitterly cold, for we are climbing an- 
other high range of mountains. We then descend into a 
valley and later climb over mountains so steep that we 
are tired out when we at last reach the old village of 
Muzo, which has been the center of the emerald industry 
for hundreds of years. 

The emeralds are found not far from the town. They 
lie on the steep slopes of a mountain covered with woods. 
The earth is first cut away, and under it are beds of black 
limestone and shale containing a network of white veins 
in which crystals of emerald are embedded. When taken 
out each is a six-sided prism of the richest green color. 

The mining is done by Indian laborers, who clear away 
the earth and rock from above, and then break up the 
limestone with crowbars, picking out the emerald veins 
with their hands. The precious stones are then carefully 
separated from the rock and are sent to London or New 
York to be cut into jewels. The Indians are guarded 
day and night by watchmen. They live in little huts near 




Mining emeralds in the Andes. Below is a piece of the rock 
with the emeralds showing. Each is a prism of purest green. 



53 



54 SOUTH AMERICA 

the mines and are not allowed to keep chickens for fear 
that the fowls, in scratching for gravel, may swallow some 
of the emeralds and hide them away in their craws; 

Leaving Muzo, we make our way back to Bogota, from 
which we go to Honda and thence ride on muleback for 
days over the mountains and valleys to the seaport of 
Buenaventura, where we entered Colombia. All the way 
we hear much and see something of the minerals of Colom- 
bia. The northern Andes are one of the world's treasure 
vaults, and they contain valuable beds of iron, copper, 
lead, silver, and gold. They have been mining gold in 
Colombia since the Spaniards conquered the Indians, and 
within that time more than seven hundred million dollars' 
worth has been taken out of the rocks and from the beds 
of the streams. Gold is to be found in every state of the 
republic, and color or traces of the precious metal in the 
gravel of almost every stream. One of the richest gold 
mining sections is Antioquia (an-te-o'ke-a) , where Medellin 
is the chief city, and there are silver mines farther south 
in Tolima (to-le'ma) and Cauca. Copper has been dis- 
covered in five different states, and beds of coal are 
known to exist. The country has also valuable fields of 
petroleum. 

The most interesting of the minerals of Colombia is 
platinum. This metal is rare, most of the world's prod- 
uct coming from the Ural Mountains in Russia. Un- 
til the World War, Russia was producing nine tenths of 
all that was mined, but since then a great deal has been 
exported from Colombia. The platinum is found mixed 
with other metals in the gravel of the streams. It is 
washed out and separated and then sent to the market. 

Platinum has a value several times greater than gold. 
It is not dissolved by acids or melted by a very high tern- 



EMERALDS AND PLATINUM 55 

perature, therefore, it is indispensable in many chemical 
operations. It is used in making munitions and nitrates, 
and for this purpose was very important in the World 
War. At that time our supply from Russia was cut off 
and all we used came from Colombia. Platinum is used 
also in dentistry, and I doubt not that some of us have 
bits of platinum in our teeth which have been nlled. It 
is employed as a setting for diamonds and other precious 
stones, and it makes the most costly of jewelry. 

Platinum can be pulled out into wires as fine as the 
hair of a baby, so fine that twelve hundred of them, laid 
side by side, would cover a width of only one inch. 

1. Trace our journey from Panama to Colombia. Compare the 
Pacific with the other great oceans. What islands of the Pacific 
belong to us? How did we acquire them? Which group is the 
largest ? The most valuable ? 

2. Compare Colombia with your own state as to size and climate. 
How do mountains affect climate? Why has Bogota, so near the 
equator, cool weather and the fruits and grains of the temperate 
zone? What is the government of Colombia? 

3. What is cacao? From what countries of the world does it 
come? (See Table XVI.) Make a visit to a cacao plantation 
and trace a box of cacao beans from there to New York. How 
is chocolate made? What candy do we get from cacao? (See 
Carpenter's "How the World is Fed," pages 317-322.) 

4. What other important tropical fruit do we import from Colom- 
bia ? How is it raised ? From what seaport does it come ? What 
does it cost at your home ? Tell the story of its travels if it came 
from Colombia. (See Carpenter's "How the World is Fed," page 
271.) 

5. Contrast the principal river of Colombia with the principal 
river of the United States. Describe a trip up this river. Make a 
list of the animals you see along its banks. 

6. Would you like to live in Bogota? Why? Describe the city 
and its inhabitants. What great falls are near by? How do they 
compare with Niagara Falls ? 



56 SOUTH AMERICA 

7. Describe your visit to the emerald mines. Compare these 
precious stones with diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. (See Car- 
penter's "How the World is Clothed," chapters 35 and 39.) 

8. What is platinum? Give some of its uses. From what two 
countries does the most of the world's supply come ? Why was it of 
value in the World War? Mention other important minerals that 
come from Colombia. 



o&ic 



VIII. A LAND OF THE EQUATOR 

WE have left Colombia, have steamed along the north- 
west coast of Ecuador, have sailed by the Galapagos 
(ga-lap'a-gos) Islands, noted for their enormous turtles, 
have called at the ports of Esmeraldas (es-ma-ral'das) and 
Bahia (ba-e'a), and are going up the Guayas (gwl'as) 
River to Guayaquil, the chief seaport of the country. It 
was only yesterday that we crossed the equator, and we 
are now a little south of that line in one of the hottest 
regions of the world. 

Ecuador is the Spanish name for equator, and the country 
lies on both sides of that line. It is more than twice as 
large as Illinois and almost as large as the United Kingdom 
of Great Britain and Ireland. It has rivers that flow into 
the Pacific Ocean and also some that go down into the 
Amazon, and the Atlantic. 

Ecuador consists of a strip of low land along the Pacific 
Ocean about eighty miles wide, running back to the foot- 
hills of the Andes ; of the wide Andean highlands ; and of 
their eastern slope, which falls rapidly to the vast forests of 
the Amazon basin. Only the lowlands of the east and west 
are tropical. The climate grows steadily cooler as one 
climbs the slopes of the Andes, and in the high valleys 



A LAND OF THE EQUATOR 



57 



and plains upheld by these mountains, having an average 
height of more than a mile and one half above the sea, 
the climate is like spring all the time. Indeed, as we go 
from the seacoast to the tops of the Andes we shall find 
every kind of cli- 



SCALE OF MILES 




mate from the torrid 
to the frigid zone, 
the higher peaks 
being clad with per- 
petual snow. 

Along the coast it 
is easy to realize that 
we are still in the 
tropics. Look at 
the city of Guaya- 
quil as it lies on the 
banks of the river. 
There is not a chim- 
ney rising above any 

of the houses, and the buildings are made without glass 
windows, mere holes in the walls serving for light and 
air. The town does not need furnaces, and heating stoves 
are unknown. 

The dark-skinned boatmen who have rowed out to the 
ship to take us on shore wear but little clothing, and as 
we land at the wharf we see half -naked babies playing about 
near their mothers, who sit in the shade of the buildings 
peddling oranges, pineapples, bananas, and other tropical 
fruits. 

How the sun beats down upon us as we stand in the street ! 
We have on thick hats and we carry umbrellas. We are 
warned to walk in the shade and to stay in at midday. 
Guayaquil has often been very unhealthy, but it is said 




5§ 



A LAND OF THE EQUATOR 59 

to be safe for tourists and others to-day. Nevertheless, 
it has had yellow fever and bubonic plague, and we shall 
always sleep under mosquito nettings at night. 

Let us leave the wharves and go farther over into the 
business section. Now we are walking under arcades by 
one store after another. It is like passing through a 
museum or a bazaar in the East Indies. The shops are all 
open. The front walls have been folded back or taken 
away for the day and the goods are piled upon the counters 
and stacked on the floors. 

What a queer throng is this that moves along in the 
shade ! There are white women in black gowns with 
black shawls over their heads. There are Indian girls 
in bright-colored dresses and straw hats, and copper- 
skinned Indian peons, or workmen, who trot along carry- 
ing bags of cacao and other wares on their backs. 

How many donkeys there are in the street ! Here comes 
one loaded with lumber. He has three long boards strapped 
on each side his back and he clears the whole roadway 
when his master turns him about. There is another carry- 
ing two large wooden boxes, between which his head peeps 
out. That is the bread wagon of Guayaquil, and the boy 
who is dragging the animal onward is probably the son of 
the baker. There are other donkeys carrying vegetables and 
fruit in panniers, and we see that these little animals here 
take the places of our huckster carts, carriages, and drays. 

But what is the matter with that donkey's legs ? He 
seems to have on trousers, and there is a band of cotton 
cloth on the under side of his body. We see other donkeys 
dressed the same way, and when we ask why are told that 
the gnats and flies are so bad in Guayaquil that the donkeys 
and mules often wear waistbands and trousers. 

Let us take a walk through the city. It is laid out in 



60 SOUTH AMERICA 

squares and runs for about two miles along the shores of 
the river. The streets are paved with asphalt or blocks 
of gray stone. Many of them are lined with trees, and 
there are beautiful parks in which we can rest under the 
shade of the palms. The town has some large buildings, 
but most of the houses are of one or two stories, made in 
such a way as to withstand the earthquakes which are 
common in Ecuador. 

We stop for a moment before a house in the process of 
building. The dark-skinned carpenters are nailing bamboo 
laths on the framework of the structure and covering them 
with a thin coat of plaster. That is to be the outside of 
the house. When finished it will look as though it were 
made of brick or stone covered with stucco, but in fact it 
will be so thin that one could easily ram a hole through 
it with a fence rail. See how the beams and rafters are 
made in sections and fitted together so that they will give 
and not break if an earthquake occurs. Heavy buildings 
might fall at such times, but these light structures rock to 
and fro and do not come down. 

Guayaquil is one of the best ports on the west coast of 
South America. It is eight hundred and thirty-five miles 
from Panama. It lies on the Guayas, the only navigable 
river which flows into the Pacific Ocean between San 
Francisco and the Strait of Magellan. The river is a mile 
wide where it faces the city, and so deep that it furnishes 
a safe harbor for large ocean steamers, The port is sixty 
miles inland, and the Guayas forms a waterway to much 
of the lowland which borders the coast. We find the 
stream filled with shipping and see many dugouts and 
cargo boats which have brought in cacao, cane sugar, and 
ivory nuts for export. 

There is a railroad which goes from Guayaquil up the 



A LAND OF THE EQUATOR 61 

Andes to Quito. The distance is two hundred and 
ninety-seven miles, and the trip can be made in less than 
two days. There are also many mountain trails down which 
goods are brought to the port. There are little steamers 
which will take us up the Guayas River almost to the 
foot of the mountains, and we can go from there to Quito 
across country by mules. We shall travel that way in 
order to study the lowlands and learn about the highlands 
as we climb up through the passes to the Andean plateau. 

We leave Guayaquil at night on a small steamer and 
awake to find ourselves moving in and out among little 
frame houses built high upon piles surrounded by water. 
It is the rainy season in Ecuador and the low coast lands 
are flooded. The people are now living as high above the 
ground as the second stories of our houses at home, but 
their buildings seem to be floating. We see them going 
from hut to hut in canoes. There are marketmen rowing 
about ; the schoolhouse is on piles, and we see children in 
boats being paddled to school. 

This town is Bodegas (bo-dag'as), the head of navigation 
of the Guayas. Only a small part of it is on the mainland, 
and this is half flooded. The street crossings of that 
section are bridged with logs, and the people have to hug 
the walls and step upon blocks in getting from one store 
to another along the side streets. 

Many of the houses are far out in the river. The smaller 
ones have only one room. They are made of poles covered 
with palm leaves, and are reached by ladders from the water. 
Let us take a canoe and visit one of them. The owner 
makes us welcome, and we sit down on a block on the floor, 
holding ourselves rather gingerly for fear the floor may 
break through and drop us into the water. See, the floor 
is made of bamboo canes with wide cracks between them. 



62 SOUTH AMERICA 

The women do not need to sweep, for the dirt falls through 
into the river, or to the ground when the stream has gone 
down. 

Notice that clay pot resting on the fire in the box over 
there. That is the cook stove of the family. These people 
use charcoal for fuel. They live largely upon sweet potatoes 
or yams, plantains or large bananas, and a potato-like 
tuber called the yucca. They are fond of rice, and eat 
a great deal of beef dried in the sun. 

Leaving Bodegas, we start out for a trip through the 
lowlands before climbing the Andes. We ride for miles 
in canoes among the trees of the tropical forest, stopping 
to gather the orchids and other beautiful flowers with which 
they are loaded. Now monkeys make faces at us out of 
the branches, and now a bright-colored parrot scolds as 
we go on our way. We frequently see alligators which swim 
lazily off into the bushes, and now and then take a shot 
at one, but the beast dives at the sound and we cannot tell 
whether we have hit him or not. 

In the more elevated country we • see cacao plantations 
and tagua palm trees which look like gigantic ferns with 
green balls of fruit as large as our heads. The fruit of the 
tagua is in bunches at the base of the leaves. It looks like 
an enormous chestnut bur, but it is really a palm bur eight 
or ten inches thick containing a dozen or more nuts as big 
as the fist of a small baby, which, when green, are filled 
with a soft jelly-like substance tasting not unlike coconut 
milk. When the nuts grow ripe they become as hard as 
bone. They are then gathered and shipped to different 
parts of the world to be used as vegetable ivory. The 
kernel of the nut has a texture very much like elephant 
ivory. It is so hard that it can be sawed, carved, and 
turned into all sizes and shapes. It is white, but it can 




Ivory nuts. The fruit of the tagua palm furnishes material from 

which millions of buttons are made. 

63 



64 SOUTH AMERICA 

be dyed and it takes a most beautiful polish. The tagua 
tree is found also in Colombia and Panama. 

It is from such nuts that many of our buttons are made. 
Ecuador exports more of the nuts than any other part 
of the earth, and the United States buys over twenty million 
pounds of them every year. We have over a score of 
vegetable ivory factories and they turn out bushels of 
buttons a week. 

There is another palm in this region which supplies large 
quantities of goods for export to the United States. This 
is the planta de toquila (to-ke'la), from the leaves of which 
comes the fine straw for making Panama hats. The tree 
grows wild in this hot, humid region, and the hatmakers 
go about and gather the leaves, which they tear apart into 
the fibers used for weaving. Thousands of women and 
children are engaged in this work. The finest hats are 
woven under water, as the straw becomes brittle when 
exposed to the sun. 

The most beautiful bats take a long time to make, and 
they sometimes sell for as much as one hundred dollars 
apiece. The children can weave two of the cheapest 
grade of hats in one day. The hats are called Panamas 
because they were formerly sent to Panama and thence 
shipped to New York. They are made in Colombia, 
Ecuador, and Peru ; but the most and the best come from 
Ecuador. 

Ecuador exports rubber from the wild trees of its lowlands 
and also some coffee, famous for its fine flavor. The 
country is supposed to have deposits of gold, silver, copper, 
and petroleum, but they are but little developed. The 
trade of Ecuador with the United States has increased 
enormously since the Panama Canal was built. Cacao 
is the chief export, amounting often to one hundred million 




Genuine Panama hats are made from the leaves of the toquila palm. 

6s 



66 SOUTH AMERICA 

pounds in one year. We buy most of its rubber, ivory 
nuts, and cacao, and sell to it machinery, railway supplies, 
cotton and woolen goods, and foodstuffs. 



:>XK< 



IX. CLIMBING THE ANDES TO QUITO 

WE have left the lowlands of Ecuador and are on our 
mules climbing the great mountain wall of the 
Andes. The road is so narrow in places that we go single 
file, and often so steep that we fear we may slip off behind. 
We ford many streams, making our way in and out through 
the bowlders and throwing our legs high on the necks of 
the mules to keep our feet out of the water. Now we ride 
along narrow ledges, shuddering to think what would 
happen if the animals should slip in the mud and slide off 
into the deep canon below. The going is worse farther 
up and we heartily agree with the natives, who say their 
roads are for birds rather than men. 

As we ascend the air becomes fresher and cooler. The 
coffee and cacao trees have now disappeared. We have 
left the tropical forests, and we are in a region of less 
luxuriant vegetation. The trees and plants continue to 
change as we rise. They grow smaller, and at last we are 
so far above the sea that there are no trees at all. # 

How cold the wind is ! We shiver under the blankets 
in the rude huts where we stay overnight, and are very 
uncomfortable. Our beds are wooden platforms which 
seem to seek out every bone in our bodies. We are tor- 
mented with insects, and the chickens and dogs run in and 
out of the rooms where we are trying to sleep. 

Still farther on we reach a plain which is higher in the 



CLIMBING THE ANDES TO QUITO 



67 



air than the top of Pikes Peak. It is covered with sand, 
and the wind almost blows us off our mules as we ride over 
it. This is the Arenal, the pass of the Andes through which 
we enter the high central valley where most of the people 



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iLiktcPsEsHB 



Mountain trail in Ecuador. Most of the people of Ecuador live 
on high plateaus, many of which can be reached only by trails 

like this. 



of Ecuador live. Ecuador is situated in the torrid zone, 
but it has all kinds of climates. 

Now we have gone over the pass and, descending a little, 
are soon on our way up the valley toward Quito. We are 
almost two miles above the sea, with some of the highest 



68 SOUTH AMERICA 

of the Andes in sight. Over there is Chimborazo (chim-bo- 
ra/zo), its snowy peak kissing the sky more than four miles 
above Guayaquil; and on each side of us, walling the 
valley, as far as our eyes can reach, are mountains, many of 
which are almost as high. 

This wide valley extends from north to south throughout 
Ecuador. It has been called an avenue walled with 
volcanoes. Some of the many craters are active, and we 
can see the steam rising in clouds from them as we ride by. 
Earthquakes are frequent, and the houses are built to with- 
stand them. 

The high valley of Ecuador is where most of the people 
live. It is a rich farming region with crops similar to those 
of our northern states. We ride by fields of potatoes, 
barley, and wheat, passing orchards, gardens, and green 
pastures on which cattle are feeding. We go from one 
town to another until we come to Ambato (am-ba/to), a 
thriving little city in the heart of the Andes and a center of 
trade for east Ecuador. The town was destroyed more 
than two hundred years ago by the eruption of the vol- 
cano of Cotopaxi (ko-to-pak'se). The mountain is now 
smoking, and we tremble a little as we pass it on our way 
up the valley. 

Ambato is a station on the railway from Guayaquil to 
Quito. We take the train here and ride all day through 
the high valley, stopping a while at Latacunga (la-ta- 
koon'ga), between the volcanoes of Cotopaxi and Chim- 
borazo, and arriving at Quito late in the evening. 

We are now in the highest capital of the world, with the 
exception of Lassa, the capital of Thibet in the Himalaya 
Mountains. Quito is two thousand feet higher than the 
capital of Mexico and about seven hundred feet above 
Bogota. It is more than a thousand feet above the Saint 




Indian water carriers in Quito. The jars are of burnt clay. The 
Roman Catholic church behind the fountain is one of many in the 
city. Quito has eleven monasteries and the largest convent of 

the world. 
69 



7° 



SOUTH AMERICA 



Bernard pass in the Alps Mountains, the highest point in 
Europe where men live through the year, and the place 
where the famous Saint Bernard dogs are kept to hunt for 
men lost in the snow. On Saint Bernard there is often ice 
all the year round. We find no ice at Quito. The air is 
as warm as May in Qur northern states, and the climate 
is perpetual spring. The city is almost on the equator, 
but the thin, clear air at that great height so tempers the 
heat of the sun that the people wear clothing as heavy as 
we wear in the fall. We find it cold morning and evening, 
and shiver in the unheated houses. 

Indeed, Quito is more like a city of the temperate zones 
than any other on the equator. It has vegetables the same 
as ours, and we see pears, grapes, strawberries, and apples 
for sale in the markets. The roses bloom all the year 
round ; lilies, pinks, and tulips may be had every month ; 
while geraniums continually make bright the walls and 
roofs, and wild flowers cover the courtyards and ruins. 
How clear the sky is and how bright the sunshine ! This 
is so" throughout the day except for about two hours in 
the afternoon, when it rains. 

Quito is not large, but it is about the most interesting 
city of all South America. The capital of the republic 
of Ecuador, it lies about one hundred and fourteen miles 
east of the Pacific Ocean in a bowl-shaped valley at the 
f oof., of the extinct volcano Pichincha (pe^chen'cha) , whose 
snowy peak we see far above us.. Pichincha is higher 
than Mont Blanc, but we ride up to its crater on mules. 
From its summit we can see twenty snow-clad peaks 
ranging from three to four miles in height. 

Quito is crossed from east to west by two deep ravines, 
through which Pichincha sends down its currents of melted 
snow. The streets run up hill and down, crossing one 




The Indian boys of the Peruvian Andes wear heavy hats and 
ponchos. The knitted helmets and ear tabs are necessary on ac- 
count of the cold of the high mountains. The wool of the poncho 
comes from the llama. 



7i 




72 



CLIMBING THE ANDES TO QUITO 73 

another at right angles or meeting at the plazas which are 
found here and there. The houses are of the Spanish 
style, built around courtyards, with roofs coming out 
over the sidewalks, and balconies in front of the windows. 
None of them is of more than two stories. They are 
made of stone or brick covered with stucco and roofed 
with red tiles. There are many churches and convents, 
and we see priests going about everywhere. They wear 
broad-brimmed black hats and are clad in black or white 
gowns. 

The streets are filled with traffic. Long trains of don- 
keys and mules loaded with goods move back and forth 
through them, and we now and then see llamas with loads 
on their backs. There are many Indian men, women, 
and children carrying great burdens, some of them farmers 
who are bringing vegetables and fruit into the city for 
sale. There are well-to-do people dressed as we are, and 
hundreds of Indians wearing red or yellow ponchos, white 
cotton trousers, and broad-brimmed hats of white felt. 
The Indians come from . different villages, and the cut of 
their hair, their hats, and their ponchos mark the locality 
where they live. Each tribe is said to have a style of its 
own. We are interested in the Indian boys who stare at 
us as we go by. 

Ecuador has many Indians, and most of the whites 
have, we are told, more or less Indian blood in their veins. 
Over two thirds of the population belongs to the red race, 
and the majority of them are only half civilized. They 
have small farms, or work for the whites and the mixed 
race of Spaniards and Indians. These people were ruled 
by the Incas, of whom we shall learn more in Peru, and they 
had civilized ways when the Spaniards first came. They 
had covered this high valley with their villages and they 



74 



SOUTH AMERICA 



had many cities, one of the largest of which was old Quito, 
situated where we are now. Old Quito was a much larger 
city than the present capital of Ecuador. Its exact size 
is not known, but Atahualpa (a-ta-hwal'pa) , the Inca 
monarch who lived here, had a palace roofed with gold, 
and there were many fine houses. When Pizarro, the 
Spanish conqueror, came he killed Atahualpa and en- 
slaved his Indian subjects. He was followed by other 
Spaniards, some of whom intermarried with the Indians, 
and the descendants of those people are the ruling classes 
of Ecuador to-day. 

These Indians form the working people of the country. 
They till the soil. They are the water carriers of the 
cities. They carry boxes of goods on their backs up 
and down the mountains and do all kinds of hard 
labor for very small pay. Many of them are practically 
slaves. They are not thrifty and get in debt to their 
masters, who can then force them to work until the debt 
is paid. Such debts often last from generation to genera- 
tion. The Indians seem to have no ambition to better 
themselves. All one wants is a mud or stone hut, a suit 
or two of cotton clothes, a little rice and meat for food, 
and enough money to have a feast now and then. 

In addition to these semi-civilized Indians of the Andes 
there are some from the eastern lowlands who are barbarous 
and others who are savages. In Quito we see many who 
have climbed up from the wilds bringing tropical fruits, 
rubber, and other things to the markets. There are 
Indians from the Napo River who sometimes use blowguns 
and poisoned arrows, and there are others who make 
blankets and skirts from the bark of trees. They show 
us this bark cloth and we buy pieces to take home. It 
is more like felt than cloth. 



CLIMBING THE ANDES TO QUITO 75 

Among the Indians of Ecuador is a tribe of head hunters 
who have a practice of curing the heads of the enemies 
they kill. They cut off the head, remove the bones, and 
fill the skin with hot pebbles to dry it. As it shrinks they 
keep pressing it inward on all sides so carefully that it 
keeps its shape and has the same features as when in life, 
although it may be no bigger than a man's fist. The 
heads are then baked in the sand, after which they will 
last for years. 

Formerly such heads were sometimes offered for sale 
to travelers, but the government has now forbidden the 
practice and any Indian caught with a dried human head 
is punished. 

There is a university in Quito, and public schools of 
various kinds here and there throughout the country. 
We can usually tell where the schools are, for the pupils 
study out loud, making such a din they can be heard a 
long distance. We learn, however, that many of the chil- 
dren do not attend school, and that but few of the people 
can read. This condition will probably pass away. The 
government is introducing modern education, and the 
country is slowly improving in civilization, in commerce, 
and in wealth. It has now several railroads, including 
the one from Guayaquil up the Andes, and others are 
planned. We return from Quito to the seacoast by train, 
riding for two days through the high valley and down the 
slope of the Andes. 

1. Trace our route from Colombia through Ecuador. 

2. Where does Ecuador get its name? What countries adjoin it? 
What state of ours is nearest it in size ? Compare it in size and 
population with Colombia, Peru, Chile. Describe its three regions 
according to climate. Why do most of the people live in the 
highlands? 



76 SOUTH AMERICA 

3. Why is Guayaquil the best port? How far is it from Panama? 
From New York? Describe a walk through its streets. 

4. Of what city of Italy does Bodegas remind us? How do the 
children go to school during the rainy season ? 

5. Describe our journey through the lowlands. 

6. Why might Ecuador be called the "Button Country" ? Follow 
an ivory nut from the tagua tree to its place on your clothing. Let 
the button tell the story. (See Carpenter's "How the World is 
Clothed," chapter 41.) 

7. How are Panama hats made? (See Carpenter's "How the 
World is Clothed," chapter 30.) Mention other things we get from 
Ecuador. What does Ecuador buy of us? 

8. Tell the story of your trip over the Andes. Compare the 
high plain of the Andes with our western highlands. 

9. Locate Quito on the map. How far is it from Guayaquil? 
Visit the city and tell what you see. How high above the sea is 
your home ? How many feet would it have to be lifted to be as 
high as Quito. Find out about the other high capitals of the 
world, Mexico City, Lassa, and Bogota. (See Carpenter's "North 
America" and "Asia.") 

• 10. Tell what you know about a volcano — an earthquake. 
What famous volcano is in Europe ? In North America? Compare 
Quito with Naples. (See Carpenter's "Europe" and "North 
America.") 

11. Describe the semi-civilized Indians of the highlands and the 
savages of eastern Ecuador. Contrast both with our North 
American Indians. 



X. IN THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN 
DESERT 

WE have left Ecuador and steamed several hundred 
miles southward along the coast of Peru. The 
country is one fourth as large as the United States; but 
much of it is mountains and desert, and the eastern part, 
which slopes from the Andes to the Amazon valley, is wild 
and almost unexplored. There the population is scanty, 



IN THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT 77 

being composed chiefly of the savage Indians who live in 
the forest. The most thickly peopled sections are the high- 
lands and the snow-water oases along the streams that 
flow from the Andes over the desert out to the ocean. 




Principal Railroads 



We are now in the midst of the South American desert 
which borders the Pacific Ocean, extending from Ecuador 
through Peru almost to Valparaiso (val-pa-ra-e'so) in Chile. 
It is one of the great deserts of the world, and compares in 




78 



IN THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT 79 

some of its features with Sahara in Africa, Arabia and Gobi 
in Asia, and the wild wastes of central and western Australia. 
The desert begins at the sea and runs back into the foot- 
hills of the Andes, gradually rising. It is over two thou- 
sand miles long, reaching as far as from New York to Salt 
Lake City, and its average width is only about forty miles. 
Sailing by it, as far as one can see there is nothing but 
sand, sand, sand. On the east the thirsty foothills of the 
Andes rise and lose themselves in gray rocky mountains, 
which, piled one above another, end in perpetual snow. 
On the west are the sparkling waters of the Pacific, casting 
their silvery spray on the beach. The air is cool and dry, 
but the sand is so dazzling under the rays of the sun that we 
shield our eyes with smoked spectacles to keep out the glare. 

In the lowlands of Ecuador the soil was black and moist, 
and the tropical vegetation so thick that we had to chop 
our way, a foot at a time, to get through. Here we can 
gallop on our horses for miles without seeing a tree, a flower, 
or a blade of grass. 

Now we pass queerly shaped hills which seem to be 
moving on toward the north. They are the traveling 
sand dunes of Peru. They are all shaped like new moons, 
but they vary in size. Some are so small that they could 
be put into a schoolroom and others so large that they 
contain hundreds of tons of this moving sand. 

But can a hill travel ? Come to one of the sand mounds 
and see. The winds, which here blow almost always in 
the same direction, roll the little grains of the pile over 
one another, so that they move up the outside of the crescent 
and roll down on the inside, keeping the hill of the same 
shape, but slowly shoving it onward. 

The traveling sand swallows everything in its way. It 
covers the bridle paths, which are the only roads of the 



80 SOUTH AMERICA 

desert, and for this reason we dare not go without a guide, 
who directs our course by the stars at night and by the 
winds during the day. 

Now we see a flock of vultures picking at the bones of 
animals which have perished of thirst in the desert, and 
perhaps the skull .of a traveler who has been lost and has 
died here. Now and then we behold a condor, the biggest 
bird that flies, circling high in the air above us, making 
a moving shadow on the plain ; but for most of the time 
there is nothing but sand and rock and sea. 

Is it not a wonderful region? Yes; but it is easy to 
see that it cannot be otherwise when we think just where 
it is, and how it is affected by winds and the mountains, 
which we know have much to do with causing the rains. 

The prevailing winds that sweep over this part of South 
America come from the east. Starting from the shores 
of Africa, as they cross the Atlantic Ocean, they fill 
with water so that when they reach the coast of Brazil 
they are loaded. As they go on over the land, they are 
cooled and drop a large part of the burden in the rains that 
feed the great rivers of eastern South America, and cover 
the land with tropical verdure. 

They drop more and more water as they climb the eastern 
slopes of the Andes, so that when they have reached the 
top almost all of their moisture has disappeared, and what 
is left falls there as snow. The winds then sweep on down 
to the Pacific. They are now so dry that they have not 
a drop left for the coast. The result is this arid region 
upon which rain seldom falls. 

And are there no oases in this mighty desert ? Yes ; 
here and there, at wide distances apart, are little rivers 
fed by the melting snows of the Andes. In the whole two 
thousand miles of sand there are about forty such streams, 



IN THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT 8 1 

and along them are the river oases, the only places in the 
desert where people live. It is in these oases that Lima 
(le'ma), the capital of Peru, Callao (kal-ya'6), its chief port, 
and other principal cities are located, and here are some 
of the best farm lands of Peru. The soil of the desert is 
fertile, and if it can have water it will produce almost 
any kind of crops. We ride out of the sands into irri- 
gated fields, and are surprised at the rich plantations of 
sugar cane, rice, tobacco, and cotton growing in these 
valley oases, with nothing but dry sand all about them. 

We come upon vineyards in which delicious grapes hang 
from the vines, and we slake our thirst with the oranges 
we pick from the trees. There are no better fruit lands 
anywhere than the irrigated valleys of this sandy region. 
Bananas, oranges, limes, and lemons grow side by side 
with peaches and pears, and there are luscious cherries, 
plums, dates, and figs. There are watermelons and 
muskmelons, guavas and mangoes, and also papayas and 
alligator pears. The papaya is as large as a muskmelon 
and grows on a tree; the alligator pear, which is much 
smaller, comes from a tree of the laurel family. The 
papaya is sweet, and it aids in digestion; the alligator 
pear tastes like fresh butter and is eaten with salt. We 
find fruit for sale in every market. We can buy all we can 
eat for a very few cents. 

The farms are divided into small fields fenced with 
thick walls of mud as high as one's waist, and are covered 
with a network of ditches to water the crops. In the 
north we go from the port of Paita (.pi'ta) through the 
oases of the Piura (pyoo'ra) valley where there are 
irrigated fields of red or brown cotton. Here the plants 
bloom throughout the year, and we see many that have 
buds, blossoms, and bolls at the same time. The best of 



82 SOUTH AMERICA 

the cotton is from plants only one or two years old, but 
if allowed to grow longer they become small trees and 
will produce some cotton for eight or ten years. Peruvian 
cotton brings the highest price in the market. It has long 
fibers somewhat like wool, and it is used by the manufac- 
turers of hats, stockings, and underclothes to mix with 
wool to render the articles less liable to shrink. We im- 
port a great deal for that reason. 

In the irrigated valleys farther south we see many sugar 
estates. They look much like our fields of Indian corn. 
The cane is planted in rows, and it comes up so luxuriantly 
that in the distance the fields seem a mass of beautiful 
green. Most of the plantations are large and well worked. 
Some of the richer farmers use gasoline tractors, gang 
plows, and harrows, and the cane is hauled to the mills 
upon little railroads. 

The ordinary farming, however, is done in the rudest 
way. The fields are cultivated with oxen yoked by their 
horns to plows which do little more than scratch the 
ground as they are dragged over it. The large estates 
belong to the rich whites or people of the mixed race of 
Spaniards and Indians. The laborers are the Indians, or 
peons, as they are often called. They receive low wages 
but seem to be satisfied. They are ignorant and but few 
know how to read. 

See that group in the field over there ! They are as 
brown as our Indians and they have the same high cheek 
bones. They wear high broad-brimmed hats of dirty 
white straw, and the women and children are barefooted. 
The men wear leather sandals. The women have on short 
dresses with rebosas (ra-bo'sas) around their shoulders. 
The men wear bright-colored ponchos and wide white 
pantaloons which flap around their legs. 



IN THE GREAT SOUTH AMERICAN DESERT 83 

We shall see ponchos and rebosas nearly everywhere on 
the west coast of the continent. The poncho is a woolen 
blanket as large as a bedspread. It has a hole in the 
middle, and one sticks his head through the hole and allows 
the folds to come down over his shoulders. It looks 
picturesque and is both warm and comfortable. The 
rebosa is a long black shawl large enough to cover the 
shoulders and at the same time be wrapped arcund the 
head. 

Let us enter the hut of a peon and see how he lives. The 
hut is of cane, and we can see out on all sides through the 
cracks in the walls. The floor is the ground, and the roof 
is of reeds, for it is needed only to keep out the sun, there 
being no danger of rain in the desert. The house has but 
one room and is not so large as many a room in our houses 
at home. . 

Where is the furniture? It seems as if the people had 
moved, for there is not much to be seen. There in the 
corner is a wooden platform as high as one's knee. That 
is the sleeping place for the father and mother. The 
children He on the floor. There are no mattresses, blankets, 
or quilts. The peon wears at night the same clothing as 
during the day, the little ones huddling together to keep 
warm when the weather is cold. 

Look at the opposite corner. See those two stones with 
the earthen pot on them. That is the cooking stove of 
the family. In preparing • the meals a fire is placed under 
it, and thus the stew of goat's meat and rice, the most 
common dish, is cooked. The house has no other fur- 
niture and neither chimneys nor windows. This Indian 
has a few chickens and goats. You can see them feeding 
outside the hut. At night he will bring them indoors, and 
animals and family will sleep together. 



84 SOUTH AMERICA 

We shall find such Indians all over Peru, although their 
houses and clothes are warmer in the cold mountains. 
They are of the same race as those we saw in the highlands 
of Ecuador. They were ruled by the Incas, and we can 
hardly realize that they once owned this whole country, 
and were more civilized in some ways than their descendants 
are now. The ruins of the ancient cities and villages are 
still to be seen, and there are many evidences that the 
Indians once farmed a vast territory which is now only 
desert and waste. They knew how to irrigate the soil. 
They even cultivated the hillsides of the Andes, and we 
shall see terraces high in the mountains that they built 
up with earth to raise crops. 

These Indians were once a rich people, and their rulers 
really did have dishes of gold. It is said that the Spaniards 
took out of one of their temples as much gold as forty-two 
horses could haul at one time, and about twice that weight 
in silver. The silver nails of another temple weighed 
twenty- two thousand ounces, and silver was so plentiful 
that when the horses of the invaders needed new shoes 
they were shod with that precious white metal. 

The leader of the Spaniards who invaded and con- 
quered Peru was Pizarro. We can see his dried body in 
its glass coffin in the cathedral at Lima. About eight 
years after Balboa discovered the Pacific, Pizarro began 
to explore the west coast of South America, and after 
several years reached the Gulf of Guayaquil, and some 
years later entered Peru with his soldiers. He had only 
one hundred and two foot soldiers, sixty-two horsemen, 
and two small cannon, but with this force he met the Inca 
king, Atahualpa, and by treachery was able to conquer 
him. He asked the king to take supper with him in his 
fortress and then closed the gates and killed the Indian 



IN LIMA, THE CAPITAL OF PERU 85 

attendants. The Indians were then without a leader, 
and they were so frightened by the horses and cannon, 
and so filled with fear that Pizarro would kill the king, 
that the Spaniards were able to defeat them. After that 
Pizarro kept Atahualpa in prison, but promised to release 
him if his subjects would fill with gold the room in which 
he was chained, from the floor to a mark on the wall as high 
as a man could reach. Atahualpa .sent messengers out. 
over the land to carry the promise to his people, and this 
vast amount of gold was brought in. Pizarro accepted 
the gold and then refused to carry out his agreement. 
He condemned the Inca king to death and had him strangled 
with a silk cord in sight of his people. 

It was by such methods that the Spaniards became 
masters of all western South America. They treated the 
Indians with the greatest cruelty. They made slaves of 
them, forcing them to work in the mines. They used them 
so badly that many died, and to-day Peru, with both white 
people and the Indians, has not so many inhabitants as 
when the white men first came. 



i>k< 



XL IN LIMA, THE CAPITAL OF PERU 

LIMA, the capital of Peru, is one of the oldest cities of 
our hemisphere. It was founded by Pizarro just one 
hundred years before Boston was started, and it is now 
a thriving city with electric street cars, electric lights, and 
all modern improvements. Let us climb to the roof of 
our hotel and take a bird's-eye view of the city before we 
begin to explore it. We are in a vast field of flat roofs, 
above which the massive towers of great churches rise here 




86 



• IN LIMA, THE CAPITAL OF PERU 87 

and there. At the back are the bleak foothills of the Andes, 
gray and forbidding. There are white masses of clouds 
rushing over their sides, and the hills rise one above the 
other until they lose themselves in the dark clouds higher 
up. This morning the tops of the Andes are hidden. 
On bright days their snowy summits, glistening in the 
sunlight, shine like masses of silver high above Lima. We 
are here on the edge of the foothills, and that wireless 
telegraph tower is about one thousand feet above sea 
level. It can send messages to Panama and even across 
the continent to the coast of Brazil. 

Turn your eyes again to the city. See that rushing 
stream flowing through it. That is the Rimac (re-mak') 
River, fed by the melting snows of the Andes. It waters 
this beautiful valley that makes the oasis of Lima. With- 
out it, all about would be desert. It irrigates the large plan- 
tations of sugar, cotton, and other crops that extend from 
here six miles to the coast where the river flows into the sea. 

With a glass we can see the Pacific. That town on the 
coast is Callao where we landed. It is six miles from 
the capital and the chief seaport of Peru. That train going 
down through the green fields is carrying passengers and 
freight from Lima to the steamers. 

What queer roofs are all about us ! They are more like 
little gardens than the coverings of houses. Please step 
more lightly and do not stamp your feet as you walk. 
The roof is trembling under us, and with a little effort we 
could push our way through. The roof is made of bamboo 
poles with earth spread upon them. Were it not for the 
plaster beneath, the dust would sift through into the rooms. 
This is so with most of the houses about us, the smaller 
buildings being covered with canes upon which matting is 
spread, and upon that a layer of earth, sand, or ashes. 



88 SOUTH AMERICA 

Is this not a strange way to build houses? You might 
think all would melt through if it were to rain. Yes, so it 
would, but we must not forget where we are. We are in 
the great desert of western South America, where from 
one year's end to the other rain seldom falls. There are 
probably not a dozen umbrellas in the city below us, and 
none of the people need waterproofs or rubber shoes. 

Many of the houses of Lima are constructed of mud, 
because this is the cheapest of building materials. Not- 
withstanding, the city has a substantial appearance. The 
mud walls of some of the buildings look like marble and 
some are painted to imitate granite, while others, of bright 
colors, seem to be made of brick covered with plaster. 
They are in reality nothing but mud, being made of sun- 
dried brick. There are also large buildings of stone and 
burnt brick, roofed with red tiles, for the city is one of the 
finest along the west coast. 

We are surprised at the extent of some of the houses. 
They cover a great deal of ground, but are usually of only 
one or two stories. In the two-story buildings the first 
story is made of sun-dried brick, the second being a com- 
bination of mud and bamboo canes. 

From the roof we can see that each of the large buildings 
is in the form of a hollow square, with a little patig or 
court in the center. About the court the people sit at 
night, this being their favorite lounging place. Many of 
the windows open on the courts, but much of the light comes 
from the roofs. Little dormer windows are built up for 
this purpose from nearly every one of the houses. The 
dormers look like chicken coops, and, indeed, it is hard 
to tell which are the roof windows and which are the coops. 

Yes, I mean coops which contain chickens. Don't you 
see them on the roofs all about us ? Just over the way the 



IN LIMA, THE CAPITAL OF PERU 89 

hens are putting their heads out through the slats, and just 
beyond a rooster is crowing. Thousands of chickens are 
raised on the houses of Lima. Chickens are hatched, grow 
up, lay eggs, and are finally killed for the kitchens below. 

But let us go down and take a walk through the city. 
It is laid out in the form of a triangle. The streets cross 
one another at right angles, with beautiful parks or plazas 
cut out here and there. The business buildings have 
awnings over the sidewalks, and there are many balconies 
to protect us from the rays of the sun. It is but a few 
steps from our hotel to the chief plaza, on one side of which 
is the great Lima cathedral. 

This building is one of the finest on the South American 
continent. It is older than any church in our country, 
and it has cost millions of dollars. We enter and take a 
look at the skeleton of the treacherous Pizarro in its coffin 
of glass, and then cross to the opposite side of the square 
where the government palace is situated. We enter the 
palace, call upon the president, and meet many of the 
officials, who tell us about the republic. The government 
is much like our own, consisting of a president and a congress 
elected by the people. 

But it is now later in the afternoon and the offices will 
soon close for the day. It is also the best hour for shopping, 
and the time when the streets are filled with well-dressed 
people, some chatting together, and others going from 
store to store buying goods, so we leave the palace and stroll 
along with the crowd. 

The business hours of South American cities are from 
seven in the morning until eleven, and from one until six 
in the afternoon. Between eleven and one most of the 
stores are closed. The merchants go to their breakfasts, 
for the people like to rest during the heat of the day. 



go SOUTH AMERICA 

Lima has many fine stores. Most of them are .without 
windows facing the street. They are so made that the 
whole front can be opened, and as we walk along the 
streets we seem to be passing through a museum with goods 
of all kinds piled on the floors. 

What queerly dressed women we meet everywhere ! 
They look more like nuns than our mothers and sisters 
when out shopping at home. They are clad in black and 
have fine black cloths draped about their heads and pinned 
fast at the back of the neck, so that only the face shows. 
This is the costume ladies wear on the streets. The women 
of the upper classes dress much as we do when indoors, 
and are quite as fond of gay clothes. 

The men wear clothes similar to ours. They have on 
tall hats and kid gloves, and nearly every one carries a 
cane. See how they lift their hats, smile, and shake 
hands when they meet, and how they smile and tip their 
hats when they part. The Peruvians are polite, and 
especially cordial to strangers. One of them will walk 
a block to show us our way, and if we admire anything he 
has he will ask us to accept it as a gift. Such offers, how- 
ever, are merely a matter of form, and we must' not accept 
them. 

During a recent trip in South America, I was offered all 
sorts of things, from diamond rings to poodle dogs and fast 
horses. One day a rich Peruvian told me his palace was 
mine. I felt quite rich for a moment, but I knew he could 
not be in earnest and politely refused. 

But let us leave the stores and walk through the city. 
The streets are so narrow that the carriages and auto- 
mobiles have trouble in passing, and we are often crowded 
against the walls by the hucksters and milkwomen, who 
ride quite close to the sidewalk to keep out of the throng. 



IN LIMA, THE CAPITAL OF PERU 91 

The hucksters carry their vegetables about in panniers 
slung upon donkeys, and the bread men ride horses or 
mules with bags of loaves on each side. 

That woman coming toward us is a milk woman. See 
how she bobs up and down as her pony trots onward. 
She has her cans in those leather buckets fastened to the 
sides of the pony, and she is sitting almost on top of the 
buckets, with her feet about the pony's neck. She is 
dressed in bright calico and wears a broad-brimmed Panama 
hat above her brown face. Now she stops and slides over 
the horse's neck to the street. She ties a rope around his 
front legs at the ankles to keep him from running away, 
and takes one of the buckets into a house. All the milk 
of Lima is thus served. The narrow streets are not suited to 
carts or large wagons, and the huckstering is done on 
donkeys or mules. 

Next morning we go to the market, where we find dozens 
of animals loaded with all sorts of things. The big market 
house is thronged with cooks and other women buying 
supplies for their tables. 

As we go by the stalls we see that the oases of the desert 
produce many good things to eat. There are string beans 
as long as your arm. They are tied m bunches and hung 
upon poles. We see potatoes of all kinds, some of which 
are as yellow as gold. They are the famous papas ama- 
rillaSj the yellow potatoes of Peru. We see sweet potatoes 
of many varieties, and quantities of yucca, a rootlike tuber 
somewhat like the potato. It grows as big around as a 
baseball bat and is often two feet in length. The flesh is 
white and like wax or jelly. 

There are roasting ears, squashes, and pumpkins, and 
many kinds of melons. The fruit dealers have oranges, 
lemons, alligator pears, guavas, papayas, pomegranates, 



92 SOUTH AMERICA 

pineapples, bananas, peaches, pears, and grapes of many 
varieties. There are excellent fish, one species of 
which is served with lemon juice and eaten raw. There 
are all sorts of meats, and one can buy a kid or a half dozen 
guinea pigs for a trifle. The Peruvians are fond of guinea 
pigs, and raise them for food. We eat some of the meat 
in a stew and find it delicious. 



:>X*c 



XII. UP THE ANDES 

GET out your overcoats, put on your high boots, and take 
your mittens along. We are bound for the top of 
the Andes, and may have to tramp through the snow. 

We shall ride there upon one of the steepest railways 
of the world. The central railway of Peru begins at Callao, 
on the Pacific Ocean, and goes over the Andes and for 
some distance down the east slope, with a branch to the 
famous silver and copper mines of Cerro de Pasco 
(ser'ro da pas'ko), which are now owned by a United States 
company. The railway was planned and partly constructed 
by a Californian named Meiggs, but the cost was so great 
that the branch to Cerro de Pasco was not completed until 
a few years ago. 

As it is, the road is several hundred miles long in its 
windings, although in a straight line it is only about one 
hundred miles to the top of the pass. It is so steep, how- 
ever, that during that one hundred miles we shall rise more 
than three miles above the level of the sea, and land on the 
great plateau between the two ranges of the Andes. 

Leaving Lima at seven o'clock in the morning, we pass 
through the sugar and cotton plantations of the Rimac 




A railway in the Andes built by American engineers. The track 
zigzags back and forth to reach higher grades. 



93 



94 SOUTH AMERICA 

valley. The fields are as green as Georgia in June. The 
cotton is in blossom, and the plantations look like vast 
gardens of pink and light yellow roses. There are gangs 
of Indian peons, clad, in white, working among them. The 
fields are as well kept as our gardens at home. 

We ride by several villages of one-story houses, pass a 
cotton mill and a large sugar factory, and then shoot out into 
the dry foothills of the Andes. What a change ! The vegeta- 
tion has disappeared, and the low hills are bleak and bare in 
the fight of the early morning. We ride for miles, climbing 
higher and higher, and seeing nothing but dazzling gray rocks. 

Farther on there is more moisture, and a thin fuzz of 
green crops out of the gray. Now a little cactus and small 
bunches of weeds appear. As we rise higher still the 
mountains grow greener. At a mile above the sea there is 
a thin coat of grass, and at two miles we count forty dif- 
ferent kinds of flowers at a stopping of the train. There 
are buttercups without number, and flowers of all colors, 
the names of which we do not know. It is now winter in 
the Andes, when halfway up the western slope there are 
frequent mists or light rains. In summer all is as gray 
and sterile as the desert below. 

Now we have come to a region where patches of soil are to 
be seen here and there, and where every foot of good 
ground is tilled. The fields through which we are riding 
are not bigger than bedspreads, and those on the other side 
of the valley seem in the distance the size of a handkerchief. 
See those green ledges one above the other on the side of 
that mountain ! They rise almost to the top and are so 
made that a man could stand on any of the lower ones and 
weed the crop on the ledge just above. Those terraces 
were built by the Indians in the time of the Incas. They 
are now used only for grazing. 



UP THE ANDES 95 

We have stopped at a station. About it is a village of 
huts with walls of sun-dried brick and roofs of gray thatch. 
The stones have been laid upon the roof to keep the strong 
winds from lifting the thatch. How small the huts are and 
how mean ! Some are no better than dog kennels. They 
are the homes of the dark-faced Indian men, women, and 
children dressed in white cotton, who are gathering about 
us as we stand on the platform. You may see more of 
them at work in the fields or tending the llamas, alpacas, 
and sheep in the mountains. 

How pure the air is, and how grand the scenes all about 
us ! The mountains rise almost straight over our heads. 
The railroad hangs to their sides, and we ride for miles 
between walls of rock which look like gigantic cathedrals, 
their spires lost in the clouds. We shoot through tunnels 
which wind about like the letter S, and cross steel bridges 
over deep canons above mountain streams. Every turn 
brings new pictures, some of which are of terrible grandeur. 

What a triumph of modern engineering was the building 
of this track up the Andes ! It cost many million^ of dollars 
and thousands of lives. The road goes up some of the 
steepest mountains of the globe. Much of its bed was cut 
out of the rocks, and at times the men had to be lowered 
in baskets over the precipices to drill holes for the blasting. 
The tracks wind this way and that, one above the other, 
so that in places we can count five different tracks which 
run almost parallel along the steep mountain wall, showing 
us how the road had to zigzag to climb its way up. 

Farther on the air grows colder. At two miles we pass 
through a rainstorm, and later are surrounded by snow. 
Now the mist and clouds have come down about us, and we 
are enveloped in fog. A little higher, and we are above 
the clouds. Now the wind is carrying the clouds down 




9 6 



UP THE ANDES 97 

the Andes, the air becomes clear, and we shudder at the 
precipices, along the walls of which we are crawling. 

Now we are surrounded by glaciers on the tops of the 
Andes. That white peak above us is Mount Meiggs. Its 
summit is more than seventeen thousand feet above the 
sea, and where we stop at the entrance to the Galera tunnel 
we are three miles farther up in the air than when we 
started this morning. 

We are at the highest point on any railroad in the world, 
far above the height of Fujiyama, the sacred snow-capped 
mountain of Japan. We are about as high up as Mont 
Blanc, and a thousand feet higher than Pikes Peak or any 
other mountain in the United States outside Alaska. 
There is a blue glacier hanging over us at the top of Mount 
Meiggs, and right under it, in the middle of the tunnel, 
is a place where the waters flowing to the Atlantic and to 
the Pacific divide. We go in and take a drink from the 
stream at the side of the railroad, which is trickling its 
way to the Rimac River and the Pacific, and then by a jump 
reach a place where we bend over and scoop up some water 
about starting down the east slope into one of the tribu- 
taries of the Amazon on its way to the Atlantic. 

We walk farther on through the tunnel to the eastern 
side of the Andes. There are snow banks outside the 
tunnel and we start a snow fight away up here in the 
clouds. We are soon glad to stop. The air is so rare that 
every ball we throw sends our hearts into our throats, and 
we pant for breath. We try to yell, but our voices are 
weak from the thinness of the air, and the yell ends in a 
squeak. Our boots suddenly grow heavy. We move 
slowly, and in climbing the hills we crawl. Some of us 
are attacked with the soroche (so-ro'cha) or mountain 
sickness that comes to many when they first go so high 



98 SOUTH AMERICA 

in the air. We have terrible headaches, and at the same 
time feel severe nausea. During our first night in the 
mountains we cannot sleep. Some of us faint, and blood 
comes from our mouths, eyes, and noses. The sickness 
passes away after a while, however, and we then enjoy the 
strange sights and pure air of the Andes. 



:£<*;c 



XIII. ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 

WE are starting this morning for a journey upon the 
high plateaus of the Andes. The cold air bites our 
noses. There are snowy mountains on each side of us, and 
we are on what might be called the roof of the South 
American continent. The Andes are among the highest 
mountains of the globe, and they are surpassed only by 
the Himalayas of Asia. They have several peaks more 
than four miles above the sea. We saw some of the loftiest 
in Ecuador, and we shall travel among others on our way 
south through Peru and Boh via. 

The highest of the Andes is Mount Aconcagua in 
Argentina. Its top is about twenty- three thousand feet 
above the sea level. Beginning with it and running 
northward to Ecuador, the mountains extend in an irregular 
double chain, upholding this lofty plateau where we are 
now. The plateau in some parts of Peru is five hundred 
miles wide, and in Bolivia it is bigger than the state of 
Missouri. Much of it is more than twice as high as the top 
of Mount Washington. 

We are many days riding on horseback upon the plateau, 
and now and then we make excursions off to the camps 
where men are mining for silver and gold. The Andes are 



ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 99 

noted for their mineral deposits, and great quantities of 
the precious metals, as well as copper and tin, are taken out 
of them and shipped to the United States and Europe 
every year. Some of the best mines of Peru belong to 
United States citizens, and among them are the copper 
and silver mines of Cerro de Pasco, reached by the central 
railway up which we have come. Cerro de Pasco is on 
a branch line ninety miles north of the road over the Andes. 
It is built above what ,was one of the largest bodies of 
silver ore ever known. It was about a mile long and more 
than half a mile wide. The mine was discovered several 
hundred years ago by an Indian shepherd who had wandered 
there one day with his flock. As evening drew on he found 
the air cold and kindled a fire before which he lay down to 
sleep. When he awoke next morning he discovered that 
the stone upon which his fire had been built had melted 
and turned to silver. Since then millions of tons of silver 
ore have been taken out of mines below where that shepherd 
lay, and now great quantities of copper are being mined 
from where it was found under the silver. The copper 
mines are owned by men from the United States who have 
built a huge smelter near Cerro de Pasco. It is over four- 
teen thousand feet above the sea and is the highest smelter 
on earth. From it come many thousands of pounds of 
copper a day. The red metal is shipped over the railroad 
to the seacoast, and thence sent north through the Panama 
Canal to the United States. It may be that the telephone 
wires in our home towns are made of that copper. 

Another important mineral found in Peru is vanadium, 
which is mixed with steel to increase its strength and 
resistance to shock. ' It is used largely for airplanes, 
armor-plate, and automobiles. It is also employed in 
machine tools which will run at high speed and not be 



IOO 



SOUTH AMERICA 



affected by heat. Peru produces most of the vanadium 
of the world, and its mines are worked by United States 
citizens. They are not far from Cerro de Pasco. They are 
more than three miles above sea level, near the famous 
Rock Forest of the Andes, a region somewhat like our 
Garden of the Gods in Colorado. 




This copper smelter near Cerro de Pasco, 14,000 feet above the sea, 
belongs to citizens of the United States. 



Vanadium looks somewhat like black asphalt. It is dug 
out of the earth and carried on the backs of llamas to the 
railroad; thence shipped to the seacoast, from where it 
is exported to steel centers all over the world. During 
the World War much of this metal was used in making ma- 
chine guns and other things for the armies of the United 
States and our allies. 



ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 101 

Petroleum has been found in the highlands, and large 
pools of it are being worked along the coast of the Peruvian 
desert. 

Traveling southward upon the high plateau of the Andes, 
we ride on and on over desolate plains covered with a 
scanty growth of fuzzy green grass. How it rains ! It is 
now winter and we have a storm of hail, snow, or rain 
almost every day. The grass is soaked with water, and 
we cannot get down from our horses without wetting our 
feet. 

There are but few trees, and the little mud huts have only 
small patches of potatoes, green barley, or quinua (keen'wa) 
about them. 

This plateau is the natural home of the potato, which was 
first taken to Europe about seventy years after Columbus 
discovered America. Later on it was cultivated in Ireland 
to such an extent that it is often called the Irish potato. 
The potatoes of Peru are small, many of them being no 
bigger than walnuts. It takes a milder climate and a rich 
soil to make them grow to the size of the huge tubers sold 
in our markets. The potatoes of Montana and Colorado 
would be giants in this land from which their forefathers 
came. 

We are now so far above the sea that barley will not 
ripen, although some is grown for forage. Quinua, which, 
takes the place of many other grains in these highlands, is 
a plant much like our chickweed. It has yellow or red leaves 
and little white seeds which when shelled out are like hominy 
ground tine. It is eaten as mush and is cooked in stews. 

There are dandelions and other hardy flowers on the 
plains. There are evergreen bushes that grow only as 
tall as our ankles, for all things are stunted here so high 
in the air. 



ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 103 

What are those queer animals we see in the pastures or 
going along with bags on their backs? They are bigger 
than sheep, but they remind us of them, for they are 
covered with wool. They have long necks, with heads 
like a camel's. Their feet and legs are like those of a deer. 
See how gracefully they walk. Notice how they hold their 
little heads in the air, pricking up their ears like so many 
Skye terriers. Those are llamas, the odd little creatures 
which act as beasts of burden in the Andean highland. 

Are they not beautiful ? Some are snow white, some seal 
brown, and a few black and spotted. Their wool is long. 
It is used by the Indians to make ponchos, blankets, and 
clothes. 

Let us examine the llamas more closely. Take this 
drove coming toward us, each carrying a bag of silver ore 
on his back. Notice how small the bags are. Each weighs 
just one hundred pounds. The llama is particular as 
to how much he carries, and that is the biggest weight he 
will stand. If you put on more, he will not cry or groan but 
will calmly kneel down and stay there until his load is 
made right. 

Look out ! Don't stroke that beast with your hand ! 
Don't you see he is angry by the way he is shaking his 
head? 

And do llamas bite ? 

They do not bite, but when angry they spit, and I woulc? 
rather have three camels bite me than be spat upon by one 
of these beasts. Their spittle has an offensive smell, and 
it smarts like an acid. If once hit, you will rind it hard to 
get the stench out of your clothes, and you cannot go on 
with our party until you have had a bath and a change. 
We rind some of the llamas gentle, however, and we grow 
to like them as we ride farther on the high plains. 




104 



ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 105 

But are these baby llamas on the pastures through which 
we are passing? Some of them are black and some are 
snow white. No, those are not llamas, although they look 
like them. They are alpacas, a domestic animal not used 
as a beast of burden but valued for its long, silky wool. 
The wool is finer than that of the llama and it is straighter 
and stronger than sheep's wool. It makes shawls, fine 
clothes, and umbrella covers. Much of it goes from Peru 
to our country. 

The vicuna (ve-coon'ya) , a still smaller animal belonging 
to the same family, runs wild in these regions. We may 
have a chance to shoot one later. It is as swift as a deer 
and exceedingly wary. Vicuna wool is like yellow velvet, 
and we can buy rugs made of the skins in the stores of the 
Bolivian cities. Still farther south we shall see the guanaco, 
which also looks like the llama but is as wild as the vicuna. 
It has yellow and white fur about as long as that of a 
Newfoundland dog. 

Going on with our journey, we now and then cross the 
high valleys that cut through the Andean plateau. In 
these valleys, owing to the lower altitude, the climate is 
milder, and there are all kinds of semi-tropical fruits. 
In one of these valleys we visit Cuzco (koos'ko), where 
the capital of the Incas, the rulers of the Indians of ancient 
Peru, was located. The town is situated one thousand 
feet below the level of the plateau at a place where three 
rivers meet. Nevertheless, it is more than two miles 
above the sea. 

We see here the ruins of the great temples that the 
Spaniards found in the days of Pizarro. Cuzco was then 
the chief city of the great nation of civilized Indians who 
inhabited almost the whole of western South America. 
These Indians might be compared with the Aztecs of 



106 SOUTH AMERICA 

Mexico, and Cuzco with their capital, situated where 
Mexico City now is. Cuzco had about two hundred 
thousand people, and some of its temples were plated with 
gold. The Spaniards tore seven hundred gold plates, 
each as big as the lid of a large chest, from the walls of 
the Temple of the Sun, and when they left after their first 
visit their horses were loaded with gold. A part of the 
walls of this temple and others built then are still standing. 
They are made of huge blocks of stone fitted together 
without mortar so tightly that when I tried to push a 
needle between the stones it would not go in. The ruins 
of the great fort of the Incas above the city are still to be 
seen, and near by we are shown a seat cut out of the rock 
that served as the out-of-door throne of the Inca king. 

Pizarro found the plateau quite thickly populated. 
It is still so to-day. Although it is more like a city of old 
Spain than like the capital of Atahualpa, Cuzco has now 
about twenty thousand inhabitants, who live in stone 
buildings of one or two stories. They are covered with 
plaster and have roofs of red tiles. Churches and con- 
vents have been built on the ruins of the Inca city, and 
there is a cathedral that covers several acres. 

We are surprised to see so many Indians in Cuzco. The 
town has twelve red men to every white one, and on our 
way down the Andean plateau we meet many queer-looking 
Indian men, women, and children. They are in their bare 
feet, and they wear an odd dress. The men have on bright- 
colored ponchos, black vests, and wide black trousers 
slit up as far as the knee at the back. Each wears a 
woolen cap, knit much like a nightcap, with flaps down 
over the ears. Over the cap he has a low felt hat with 
a very broad brim, which seems to be more for ornament 
than warmth. The Indian women wear black or blue 



ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 



107 



woolen skirts that reach just below the knees. They 
have hats with low crowns and broad brims. We see many 
of them in the fields, watching the llamas, alpacas, and 
sheep. Each has a 



long spool of wool in 
her hand, and she 
spins llama wool as 
she watches her 
flock. 

We meet more In- 
dians as we go on 
toward Lake Titi- 
caca (te-te-ka/ka) , 
and we shall see 
their mud villages 
everywhere on the 
high plateau of Bo- 
livia. They belong 
to the two tribes, 
the Quichua (ke'- 
chwa) and Aymara 
(l-ma-ra/) , both of 
which were here 
when the Spaniards 
first came. The 
Quichuas occupied 
Peru and the lands 
to the north. The 
Aymaras lived in 
the plateau farther 

south. Even now the descendants of these two tribes num- 
ber more than one million. 

These Indians of the high Andes are a queer people, and 




The Incas built walls of enormous stones 
without mortar, but so nicely fitted that 
the author cannot thrust a needle between 
them. 




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108. 



ON THE ROOF OF SOUTH AMERICA 109 

they have habits and ways of their own. Most of them 
are descendants of the tribes who were ruled by the Incas. 
Like those we saw in the high valleys of Ecuador, most 
of them are little more than slaves to the white and mixed 
races who own the lands. Each large farm has a small 
colony of Indians upon it, and each family has its mud hut. 
Throughout the year the Indians work one half of each 
week for the owner of the estate as rent for their huts 
and the small patches of ground about them. The re- 
maining three days they have for themselves. If their 
master does not want their work he can hire them to others, 
and if they do not obey he can punish them. 

The Indians are docile and will bear much without 
growing angry. They are said to love their masters and 
will band together to fight for them. The Indians of the 
different farms often have quarrels, and at such times 
each band marches upon the other as though in actual 
warfare. They frequently use guns, but more often slings, 
with which they throw stones with great force and skill, 
sometimes killing one another in their rights. 

Let us enter an Indian hut. The one we select would 
hardly be a respectable pigsty for one of our farms. It 
is of mud, and is not more than ten feet square. Its 
thatched roof is so low that we can touch it when we 
stand outside the front door, and as we go in we have to 
stoop and lift our feet as high as a chair to get over the 
mud sill and through the hole which serves as an entrance. 
Inside there is only just enough space to turn around. 
One side of the room is rilled with farm tools ; on the other 
is a donkey, and the chickens squawk as they run here 
and there to get out of our way. There is almost no fur- 
niture. The people sit on the floor. They often sleep 
sitting against the wall, huddling close together for warmth. 



STEAMBOATING ABOVE THE CLOUDS in 

That little clay pot over there with the ashes beneath 
it is the stove. The hut has no chimney, and the smoke 
finds its way out as it can. The cooking is simple. A 
favorite dish is challona stew with chuno (choon'yo), or 
frozen potatoes, mixed with it. Challona is dried mutton. 
The sheep is split open when killed and then left out to freeze. 
When it is stiff water is sprinkled over it and it is frozen 
again. It is then hung up out-of-doors and soon becomes 
so dry that it will keep for months. It must, however, 
be cut up into small bits and boiled a long time before it 
is tender. 

We find chuno for sale in the markets of Cuzco, and we 
can buy them everywhere on the high plateau of the Andes. 
They look like bits of bleached bones, or perhaps more like 
the large flat white pebbles one finds on the seashore. 
They are really potatoes which are frozen and dried, so 
that they can be kept for a year without spoiling. The 
raw potatoes are first soaked in water, being wet every 
day, and left out at night to freeze. The skins are then 
trodden off with the bare feet, and the potatoes are 
thoroughly dried in the air. They are now as hard as rock 
and as white as snow. They are soaked before cooking, 
and are usually served as a stew-. We eat some, but find 
them insipid. 

XIV. STEAMBOATING ABOVE THE CLOUDS 

STEAMBOATING above the clouds! Floating over 
some of the highest waters of the globe ! Sailing in 
sight of glacial snows amid the tops of the Andes, so near 
the sky that heaven and earth seem to meet close around 
us and make us think we are on the very roof of the world ! 



112 SOUTH AMERICA 

We are outside the harbor of Puno (poo'no) on the broad 
waters of Lake Titicaca. 

The air is so clear we can see for miles. That blue 
mass in front is Titicaca Island. It will take us four hours 
to steam to it, but it looks quite near as it lies there like 
a great balloon on the water. There are altogether eight 
large islands in the lake, some of which are inhabited. 
Now we are steaming by one. See, the bits of land be- 
tween the rocks are green with scanty crops of potatoes, 
barley, and quinua. The soil is cultivated to the tops of 
the hills, and red-faced Indians are at work in the fields. 
Their huts of stone and thatch are near the shore. Some 
have llamas, sheep, and donkeys tethered about them. 

How grand are the mountains ! There is nothing finer 
in the Himalayas or the Alps. That silvery mass at the 
east, is Sorata (so-ra/ta), next to Aconcagua the highest 
of the Andes. The great wall of mountains which stretches 
from it to the east is the Sorata range, and that tall peak 
rising over the others is Illimani (el-ye-ma/ne), which is 
about four miles in height. 

This lake upon which we are floating is almost as high 
in the air as Pikes Peak. Those little huts we see on the 
islands are among the highest houses in the world in which 
people live, and this is really the loftiest of all lakes upon 
which steamboats sail. Nevertheless, it is half as large 
as Lake Ontario, and of about the same depth. 

But where does the lake come from, and where does it go ? 
We can easily see its source in the snows and glaciers about 
us. It is made by the snow water of nine rivers from these 
mighty Andes. It remains at about the same level from 
one year's end to the other. A part of its waters flows 
into the river Desaguadero (das-a-gwa-da/ro) and on into 
Lake Poopo (po-6-po') which has no outlet to the sea. 



STEAMBOATING ABOVE THE CLOUDS 113 

But let us take a look at our ship. It is as beautiful 
as a gentleman's yacht, and it is carrying us over Lake 
Titicaca at a speed of twelve miles an hour. It is named 
the Choya, and a plate on its engine records that the ship 
was built away off in Glasgow, Scotland. 

This seems strange. How could they possibly lift such 
a big ship over the Andes? The Choya weighs so much 
that if it could be loaded on wagons a thousand horses 
could not pull it. They could not lift such a weight over 
these mountains, which are twice as high as any peak of our 
Appalachian chain. 

Of course they could not if they tried to lift the ship 
as a whole. But such a vessel was needed for commerce, 
and commerce works in all sorts of ways to accomplish 
its ends. The ship was taken apart and the pieces put 
on a steamer and brought from Glasgow over the Atlantic 
and Pacific oceans to the seaport of Mollendo (mol-yen'do) 
in southern Peru. At Mollendo is the beginning of a 
railroad quite as wonderful as that upon which we came 
over the Andes from Lima. It is three hundred miles 
long and connects the seacoast with Puno on Lake Titicaca, 
the port to which we came by railway from Cuzco. The 
parts of the ship were put on the cars at Mollendo, and the 
locomotives dragged them up over the Andes to Puno. 
Here they were taken off, put together, and launched on 
the lake ; so that to-day we can sail upon these high waters 
in a steel vessel made in Scotland. This is one of the 
wonders of commerce. 

We are still more interested when the engineer tells us 
the coal he is using comes from Australia, so that both 
sides of the world seem to be working to help us along on 
our journey. 

When we examine the freight on the Choya we see how 



H4 SOUTH AMERICA 

the ship is one of the agents of commerce. It contains 
goods from the United States and other parts of the world, 
which it is carrying to Boh via ; and the captain tells us 
that it will bring back a load of copper, gold, silver, tin, 
and Peruvian bark and rubber to be sent down to the 
Pacific. Who knows but that the copper may be used 
in the same works in Glasgow where the steamer was 
made ; and whether the silver and gold may not find their 
way to Australia to pay the miners who have furnished our 
coal ? 

Now we are approaching Guaqui (gwa'ke), the only 
port of Bolivia. We see many boats near the shore and 
some starting out to bring freight to the steamer. What 
queer things they are ! They appear to be made of straw, 
but men are working upon them, and one has a donkey 
and a llama on board. Some have sails made of rolls of 
straw or reeds tied together. Others are being poled 
through the water. They are balsas, a curious craft used 
by the Indians of Lake Titicaca. They are just like the 
boats which they had when the Spaniards first came. 

Here is a balsa which has come close to our steamer. 
It is made of the long reeds that grow in quantities on the 
edge of the lake. The reeds are laid side by side and tied 
tightly in rolls which are so woven and fastened that they 
form a water-tight boat which will float on the lake. 

But we have at last reached the wharf. There is a 
crowd of Indians ready to unload the steamer. We hand 
our baggage to them and follow them to the town. As 
we go we pass hundreds of mules and llamas loaded with 
produce to be shipped across Lake Titicaca. Other goods are 
coming in by the railroad from La Paz (la pas') . They will 
be sent over the lake to Puno and will go down the western 
slope of the Andes to Mollendo, the chief port of southern 




A balsa is a large boat, woven out of reeds like a basket, 
us 



n6 SOUTH AMERICA 

Peru, from which steamers will carry them northward 
through the Panama Canal to Europe and the United 
States. This railway is one of the chief outlets for the 
tin trade of Bolivia. 

i. Locate Peru. Compare it in size with the United States; 
with your state; with Brazil; with Ecuador. (See Table V.) 
What is the government of Peru? 

2. Describe the South American desert. Why are the coast 
lands of Ecuador wet and this coastal desert so dry? What kind of 
oases has Peru? Why do the people live in the oases? Mention 
some of the important fruits and crops. Why do we import Peru- 
vian cotton? 

3. Name three others of the great deserts of the world. (See 
Carpenter's "Asia," "Africa," and "Australia.") Mention some 
famous oasis cities. Compare Lima with Cairo in Egypt ; with 
Damascus in Asia. 

4. Write a letter from an Indian boy of Peru telling how he lives 
and works in the desert. 

5. Tell the story of Pizarro and the Incas. Who were the 
Quichuas? Describe Indian life on the plateau. Contrast our 
treatment of the Indians with that of the Spaniards. Describe Cuzco 
as it is to-day. What North American Indians resembled the Incas? 

6. Trace our trip through Peru. What is the chief port? How 
far is it from Panama, New Orleans, and New York ? Write a story 
of our walk about Lima. Why are many of the houses made 
of mud and bamboo? Mention some of the things to be seen in 
the markets. Compare Lima in size with the other South American 
capital cities. 

7. Tell about the mines of Cerro de Pasco which are owned by 
North Americans. What important metals come from them? 

8. What is vanadium? Where is the chief source of supply? 
Why was vanadium necessary in the World War ? Trace a shipment 
from near Cuzco to Pittsburgh. 

9. Describe a railroad trip up the Andes. How does the altitude 
affect us? What is soroche? 

10. What grains and vegetables do we see upon the plateau? 
Where were potatoes first grown? What other grains or vegetables 
came from America ? What is chufio ? 



TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA 



117 



11. Compare Lake Titicaca with one of our Great Lakes. What 
is its outlet? What products are shipped across this lake to be 
taken to the United States? Describe our steamer and the native 
boats. 

12. What are llamas ? Alpacas? Vicunas? What other animals 
have wool fit for cloth? (See Carpenter's "How the World is 
Clothed.") 



XV. TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA 



160 mo 

Railroads 



WE are in Bolivia this morning, and we should feel at 
home. The country was named for Simon Bolivar, 
and its constitution is modeled after ours. Bolivar is often 
called the George 
Washington of South 
America. He was' 
born in Caracas 
(ka-ra/kas) , Ven- 
ezuela, at about the 
close of our Revolu- 
tionary War. He 
visited the United 
States, and during 
that time was so im- 
pressed with our gov- 
ernment that he 
went back to South 
America and started 
the revolution which spread from country to country and 
finally made it a land of republics. 

Bolivia is situated many miles from the Pacific Ocean 
and is cut off from the seacoast by Peru and Chile. With 
the exception of Paraguay, it is the only country in South 




n8 SOUTH AMERICA 

America that does not have direct access to the ocean. 
It has three railways, however, which connect it with the 
Pacific. One goes to the port of Mollendo in Peru ; an- 
other to Arica (a-re'ka) in Chile ; and a third to Antof agasta 
(an-to-fa-gas'ta) in Chile. Through each of these ports 
Bolivia has considerable commerce with our country and 
Europe by way of the Panama Canal. The eastern parts 
of the country, consisting of the rich tropical plains sloping 
down the opposite side of the Andes, have access to the 
Atlantic Ocean through some of the tributaries of the 
Amazon and Parana (pa-ra-na/) rivers. Rubber and other 
products, for instance, are sent down the Beni (ba-ne') 
River to the Madeira, where they are carried by railroad 
around the great falls and then transferred to steamers 
which take them to the Amazon and the Atlantic Ocean. 
Other goods go down the Pilcomayo (pel-ko-ma/yo) River 
into the Paraguay ; thence to the Parana and via Buenos 
Aires (bwa/nos I'ras) out to the sea. 

It is hard to realize that this inland republic is about 
one sixth as large as the United States without Alaska. 
The country may be divided into two sections. Western 
Bolivia, whose chief city is La Paz, is a tableland as big as 
Missouri, much of which is more than two and one half 
miles above sea level. It is one of the highlands of the 
Andes, and is looked down upon by some of the highest 
of these mountains. It is a dry, thirsty country, and in 
many respects is like the high plains east of the Rocky 
Mountains. Eastern Bolivia, whose chief city is Santa 
Cruz (san'ta krooz'), is equal to ten states the size of South 
Carolina. It is on the eastern slope of the Andes, and much 
of it is covered with vegetation which includes all the plants 
and trees of the tropics. 

The climate of the country differs according to the 



TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA 119 

altitude of the various regions. The low eastern plains 
are hot and unheal thful. A little higher the climate is 
temperate, and on the Andean plateaus and high valleys 
the weather is so pleasant that the region is often called 
the " Switzerland of America." These highlands comprise 
only about three tenths of the total area of the country, 
but they contain more than eight tenths of the people. 
Here are all the large cities, most of which are located 
more than two miles above the sea. There are four towns 
which are about as high up in the air as Pikes Peak, -and 
twenty-five which are higher than the top of Fujiyama in 
Japan. The altitude of Aullagas ( oul-la/gas) is almost as 
high as Mont Blanc. 

Eastern Bolivia is a land of cattle, cacao, and rubber. 
It has dense forests and rich grassy plains, but it is largely 
unsettled and much of it still unexplored. The mountains 
and plateaus of the west are where most of the people live.' 
They contain vast deposits of gold, silver, copper, and tin. 
Bolivia produces much of the tin used in the United 
States, and next to Malaysia has the largest tin mines 
of the world. 

' Boh via has a small population for such a vast area. The 
whole country has about as many people as Chicago ; and 
its chief city, La Paz, has only about one hundred thousand. 
Sucre (soo'kra), the old capital, has about thirty thousand, 
and Cochabamba, situated in a beautiful valley, is a little 
larger. The mining towns of Potosi (po-to-se') and Oruro 
(o-roo'ro) are of about the same size. Santa Cruz in 
eastern Bolivia is smaller. 

The people are whites and of the mixed race of whites 
and Indians, with many semi-civilized Indians upon the 
plateaus and savages of various tribes in the wilds of the 
east. The Indians of the plateau are Aymaras, tribes 




^1 


M i!x 1 N 




j«i 


| 




. tH, H 


Ik fWHUH 



TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA 121 

much like the Quichuas of Peru. They were conquered 
by the Incas, whose soldiers were Quichuas. The people 
of the mixed race are called Cholos (cho'los), and their 
little children are known as Cholitos (cho-le'tos). 

La Paz lies only about fifty miles from Lake Titicaca, 
where we are now. The train is ready, but we want to 
see the country, and so take a carriage drawn by eight 
mules. The Indian driver has a pile of stones in the seat 
beside him, and he keeps his team on the gallop by now 
and then throwing a pebble at the ears of such of the animals 
as are lagging behind. 

The ride is delightful. We are on the high plateau. 
The air is bracing and so clear we can see for miles. 
To the east is a great wall of snow-clad mountains, with 
Illimani rising above the rest of the peaks, and away off 
to the west are lower heights which seem to climb over 
one another and end in snow at the sky. Now we pass 
a mud hut, and now a flock of llamas, alpacas, or sheep 
feeding on the thin grass. But other than these there is 
nothing about us but the sky, the plains, and the mountains. 

As we near the close of the day we look for the city to 
which we are going. There is nothing in sight. We are 
hungry, and wonder whether we shall get there before dark, 
when at last the driver pulls up the mules on their haunches 
and the stage stops. We are on the brink of a precipice; 
a thousand feet below us in a little gorge in the mountains 
is La Paz. 

It is so far down that we can hardly distinguish the houses. 
They look like a jumble of gay-colored boxes with trees 
rising here and there above their red roofs. They grow 
plainer as we gallop on our winding way down the steep 
slopes of the hill. We are soon riding between walled 
gardens, and at last the stage stops in the heart of the city. 



122 SOUTH AMERICA 

How queer it all is ! Most of the people about us are 
clad in the brightest of reds, blues, and greens. Every 
other man wears a poncho, or blanket, with his head 
through a hole in its center, and some of the women have 
striped shawls, short skirts of bright hues, and queerly 
shaped hats. Five eighths of the population are Indians, 
and the remainder are whites or of the mixed race of 
Indians and whites called Cholos. 

Even the houses are a blaze of color, and the walls facing 
the streets are of various hues. There is a lavender 
grocery store ; next to it a shoe shop of rose pink ; and 
farther on are other establishments of cream and sky blue. 
The buildings are of one or two stories. The shops are 
open to the street and we can see all that goes on within. 

But where can we get a cab or dray to carry our baggage 
to the hotel? There is none in sight, and we learn that 
there are few in La Paz. The streets are so narrow and 
so up hill and down that such vehicles are not much used 
in the city, and all freighting is done by donkeys, ponies, 
llamas, and men. There are a dozen Indian porters around 
the stage office, and we give each man a trunk. He trots 
off to the hotel with it on his back, and we walk behind. 

Next morning we start out for a tour of the city, going up 
the hills slowly, for the air is so thin that we are soon out 
Of breath. La Paz is twice as high above the sea as Mount 
Washington, and only the natives can walk fast or run at 
this altitude. 

We visit the markets. It is early morning but the 
streets are filled with Indians, Cholos, and whites, dressed 
in all colors of the rainbow. There are scores of country 
women carrying fruit and vegetables to the markets for 
sale. Their burdens are tied in striped blankets of blue, 
red, yellow, and green, and they bend half double as they 










La Paz, the seat of the Bolivian government, lies at the bottom of 
a mountain valley, iooo feet deep, with the volcano of Illimani tower- 
ing over it. The city is more than 12,000 feet above the sea. 

123 




;;s«*«.. -■«■■'■.«#,:. 



124 



TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA 125 

walk onward. They sit down on- the streets and spread 
their wares out before them, peddling them by the piece 
or the pile. 

There are Indian men wearing gay ponchos, and so many 
copper-skinned babies that we have to pick our way care- 
fully to keep from treading upon them. Some lie on the 
cold stones and play with the merchandise scattered about. 
Others are too young to crawl ; their big black eyes peep 
out of the shawls in which they are tied to the backs of their 
mothers. Most of the babies are laughing. There is one 
crying, and over there is another who has crawled away 
from its mamma and is almost under the feet of those llamas 
coming up the street. Now its mother sees it and grabs 
it away. 

Stop and look at the queer things for sale all around us. 
What funny potatoes ! Those in that pile near us are no 
bigger than chestnuts ; they are as pink as the toes of the 
baby who is playing among them. Here are some of a 
violet color, while those in the next pile are as black as my 
boots. The white ones are chufio, and have been frozen 
for sale. 

See the great variety of fruits. We find quinces, peaches, 
and pears on every corner, as well as oranges, lemons, and 
pineapples. The latter fruits come from the lowlands, 
for it is only a few days' ride on muleback from La Paz 
to the tropical valleys found here and there in the Andes. 
The various depressions give all sorts of climates and all 
kinds of fruits. 

Eastern Bolivia is naturally one of the richest lands of 
the world. Below the plateau and over the range at .the 
east are great plains upon which vast herds of cattle and 
sheep are pastured. Lower still are forests of about forty 
million acres in which rubber trees grow, and as much as 



126 SOUTH AMERICA 

ten million pounds of rubber has been gathered there in 
one year. The rubber is shipped down the Beni and 
Madeira rivers to the mouth of the Amazon, and much 
of it goes from there to the United States. 

It is in these regions that we find Indians so savage that 
some of them are said to be cannibals. The children of 
many of the tribes go about naked or with only a cloth 
around the waist. The women wear plates of wood and 
metal in the lobes of their ears. Some of the Indians 
make war upon white men, using blowguns and poisoned 
arrows, the slightest scratch of which causes speedy death. 
The guns are hollow reeds about ten feet in length. 

On the eastern slopes of the Andes, by a short ride on 
muleback, we could reach the Yungas valley where there 
are plantations of coffee, coca, and cinchona (sin-ko'na) trees. 

Have you heard of cinchona? Perhaps not, but most 
of us at one time or another have had to take quinine. 
Quinine comes from the bark of the cinchona tree. It is 
a bitter, white powder especially good for malarial fevers. 
We shall need to take plenty of it with us when we go up 
the Amazon. 

We see loads of cinchona bark on the streets of La Paz. 
That little donkey just turning the corner has a bundle of 
it on each side of his back. Other donkeys are coming 
behind him, each of which carries a load into La Paz. Here 
it will be repacked and shipped to all parts of the world. 

Let us go and pull out a piece of the bark and take a bite of 
it. How bitter it is ! It tastes like quinine. 

Bolivia yields the best of this product, although cinchona 
trees are found all along the eastern slopes of the Andes 
between here and Colombia. All of our quinine once 
came from wild trees, but Java and Ceylon have now great 
cinchona plantations which produce more quinine than all 




A bread peddler of Cochabamba. 
127 



TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA 129 

South America. Cinchona groves are now being planted 
in Bolivia. 

The bark we tasted on the streets of La Paz was gathered 
from the forests at the head of the Beni River. It was carried 
through the woods for miles on the backs of Indians, and was 
then placed upon the donkeys which brought it to La Paz. 

But what is that we see on those other donkeys which 
are now going by us ? They are loaded with great bundles 
of what looks like dried green leaves. Those are the coca 
leaves from which is made cocaine, a drug employed to 
deaden pain. Dentists often put cocaine into one's gum 
when a sensitive tooth is to be filled. 

Coca is chewed by the Indians of the Bolivian plateau 
much as some men chew tobacco. Every Indian we meet 
has a lump of it inside his cheek, and men, women, and 
children are chewing it all day long. The Indians in the 
mines will not work unless their employers give them, in 
addition to their wages, a certain amount of coca leaves 
every day. They would rather have coca than coffee, 
tea, or tobacco. Vast quantities of it are produced every 
year. It is shipped on llamas and donkeys to all parts of 
Bolivia and also to Peru and Chile. 

We must not confound coca with cacao, the tree from 
which our chocolate comes. The coca plant is a shrub 
which grows from four to six feet in height. It has 
leaves much like our wintergreen. They are stimulating, 
and the Indians tell us that chewing them will not only 
keep out the cold, but will satisfy hunger* 

We try a chew ourselves, putting some lime with it as 
the Indians do ; but the leaves taste bitter, the lime burns 
our tongues, and as the habit is disgusting, we decide to 
leave coca alone. 

Leaving the markets, we walk about through the business 



130 SOUTH AMERICA 

streets, stopping now and then to ask the merchants to 
show us their goods from our country. We find that 
Bolivia is using cotton and woolen goods from New England, 
canned beef and other meats from our great packing 
centers, and office desks, motor trucks, and automobiles 
from Michigan. There are many typewriters and small 
sewing machines, and all the cameras and phonographs 
so well known to us. We drop into a moving picture 
show where our films are shown, among them views of 
Bolivian railroads built by our citizens. 

Teachers from the United States are employed in the 
Bolivian schools, and there is a school for Indians on 
the shores of Lake Titicaca which is greatly improving the 
tribes of the high plateau. At La Paz is a college for the 
higher education of Bolivian youth which is supported by 
the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States, and 
there are other such schools in Cochabamba, a city of 
about thirty thousand people which is three days' journey 
on muleback from La Paz. The schools of Bolivia are 
steadily improving. The boys and girls are becoming fond 
of athletics, and there are Boy Scouts who do much the 
same work as our Boy Scouts at home, 

We find that La Paz has many well-educated people. 
It has a public library and a museum, and the country 
is steadily advancing in education and prosperity. 

XVI. THE MINERAL WEALTH OF THE 
ANDES 

AT La Paz we are not far from some of the richest mining 
regions of the world. The lofty Andes throughout 
their whole length from the Isthmus of Panama to the 
Strait of Magellan contain gold. We found gold, silver, 



MINERAL WEALTH OF THE ANDES 131 

and platinum in Colombia, and copper, silver, and gold / 
in Ecuador and Peru. The Sorata range which now looks £ 
down upon us has rich veins of tin, and vast quantities 
of copper are yearly taken out of the mountains to the 
north and the south. 

There is so much gold on the east slope of the Peruvian 
Andes that during the floods the streams wash down grains 
and nuggets of this precious metal. Many of the streams 
are dry part of the year, and the Indians have paved them 
with stones so that the gold is caught in the cracks and 
may be picked up when the water is low. This was one 
of the mining methods of the Incas, and from it came 
much of the gold which the Spaniards took from them. 

During our travels through Bolivia we see the miners 
washing gravel in many places. They are usually Indians 
employed by white men. There are some at work near 
La Paz. They take the gravel and dirt from the banks of 
the streams and roll it about in wooden bowls as big as 
those in which we knead bread. From time to time they 
throw the muddy water out of the bowls, continuing to 
do so until nothing but gravel is left. The miners then take 
out the gravel, handful by handful, looking it over and 
dropping back into the bowl any little yellow bits they 
may see. Finally all the stones have been thrown out, 
and there remains a little pile of yellow pebbles and grains, 
some of which are no bigger than the point of a needle. 
This is the gold. Such methods of mining are wasteful, 
for the gold dust is often so fine that the grains cannot be 
seen. It is only . lately that modern methods of mining 
have been employed. 

When we visit the silver mines we find that most of the 
work there is done with rude tools. In the older mines 
the Indians use hammers and drills to break up the ore. 



i 3 2 SOUTH AMERICA 

They carry it out of the mines on their backs in sacks of 
rawhide. 

Silver is found in. veins of ore in the rocks, and these 
veins often extend far down under the earth. Some of 
the mines are very deep. The Indians climb out of them 
on ladders or notched sticks, with heavy sacks of ore on 
their backs. They work almost naked, wearing only 
breechcloths about their waists and singing weird songs 
as they dig out the silver. 

After it is taken out the ore is broken up into small 
pieces with hammers by women and children. The best 
of it is then ground to powder by rolling great stones over 
it. The powder is mixed with mercury, which dissolves 
the silver out of the dust, and by other chemical processes 
it is then made ready for the use of man. 

Some of the richest silver mines of the world are in the 
Andes. Here on this high Bolivian plateau is a strip of 
country, wider than the state of Pennsylvania, and as 
long as from Philadelphia to Omaha, which is dotted with 
silver mines. There is one mountain, Potosi, out of which 
has been taken almost three billion dollars' worth of silver, 
— enough to make two solid silver teaspoons for every man, 
woman, and child on the globe. 

We leave La Paz by train and ride all day across the 
plateau to the town of Oruro, a few miles from Lake Poopo. 
Oruro is a little city lying at the foot of rocky mountains 
which contain rich veins of silver and tin. 

Bolivia was long considered the richest silver mining 
country on earth. It is now surpassed by one region only 
in its output of tin, and that is Malaysia, away on the other 
side of the globe. Some tin is found in Australia, in Corn- 
wall, England, in Alaska near Bering Strait, and in other 
places, but not in large quantities. 



MINERAL WEALTH OF THE ANDES 



133 



The tin mines of Bolivia are near Lake Titicaca and Lake 
Poopo, and at other places high up in the eastern range 
of the Andes. Some of the richest of them are here at 
Oruro. We visit the mines and watch the Indian women 
and children breaking the ore into bits and picking it over. 
Tin ore looks much like dull silver. It is taken out of the 
rocks with hammers and drills, and then broken to pieces 




We leave La Paz by train and take all day to pass from one side of 
the Andean plateau to the other. 

and ground into powder. It is shipped to the United 
States or England, where it is put into a furnace with other 
materials and smelted. Common tinware is made of steel 
coated with tin. 

The United States uses more tin than any other country, 
and one half of our supply comes from these highlands. 
The concentrates, which are the best of the ore, are taken 
to smelters and refineries in New York and New Jersey, 



134 SOUTH AMERICA 

and hundreds of tons of metallic tin are made from them 
every month. We have perhaps washed our faces in basins 
coated with tin from Oruro, and eaten fruit, fish, or vege- 
tables from cans of the metal which once lay in these 
mountains. 

i. How do we go from Peru to Bolivia? What is the shortest 
route from New York to La Paz ? How did the country get its name ? 
What countries adjoin Bolivia? 

2. Compare Bolivia in size with the United States ; with your 
state; with Peru; with Colombia. Describe its two sections. With 
what part of our country does the plateau compare ? To what two 
great river basins does eastern Bolivia belong? Where do most of 
the people live ? Why ? 

3. What two countries of South America have no seacoast ? How 
do Bolivian exports reach the Pacific? The Atlantic? Trace a ship- 
ment of rubber from eastern Bolivia to San Francisco by water. 

4. Describe La Paz and its people. Why might the chief towns be 
called "Cities of the Sky"? 

5. What kind of fruits do we find in the markets? What two 
medicines or drugs come from Bolivia? What is the difference be- 
tween coca and cacao or cocoa? Give some of the uses of coca. 
What do we get from the cinchona tree? In what other parts of 
the world is it raised? Trace a shipment from there to New York, 
via the Suez Canal ; via the Panama Canal to San Francisco. 

6. Who are the Aymaras? What do you know about the Incas? 
Who are the Cholos? Where are the savage Indians found? 

7. Compare the minerals of Bolivia with those of Peru, Ecuador, 
and Colombia.. (See Tables XI, XII, and XIII.) For what is Mount 
Potosi noted ? What is rubber ? How is it gathered ? Follow the 
travels of a pencil eraser from the trees of Bolivia to your home. 
About how far does it travel ? What Other lands produce rubber ? 
(See Carpenter's "How the World is Clothed," pp. 240-261.) 

8. Tell the story of your trip through the tin mines. Give some 
of the uses of tin. Follow a cargo of tin ore from Oruro to the smelters 
in New Jersey. What other part of the world produces more tin? 
Trace a shipment from there to New York. In what part of the 
United States is tin found? How is tin manufactured? (See 
Carpenter's "How the World is Housed," chapter 20.) 



CHILE 



135 



XVII. CHILE — THE NITRATE DESERT AND 
THE GUANO ISLANDS 

PUT on your dark spectacles this morning. You will 
need them to protect your eyes from the sun, for we are 
about to travel again over the glaring sands of the desert. 
The country about Oruro is sterile, and the part of Chile 
through which we must pass on our way down to the sea 
is among the most barren lands of the world. 

•We take the little narrow-gauge railroad, built from La 
Paz to Antofagasta to bring the minerals of southern 
Bolivia out to the sea, and shoot out into vast plains upon 
which everything looks gray, bare, and forbidding. We 
cross dazzling fields of salt left by the evaporation of water 
from the lakes, and go on into regions of volcanic rock upon 
which nothing green grows. 

We are now in northern Chile, that part of the country 
which belongs to the great South American desert. Chile 
is so long and so narrow that it has been called the " Shoe- 
string Republic." It lies between the ocean and the crest 
of the Andes, having nowhere a width greater than the 
distance from New York to Boston and in some places 
much less. It is so long, however, that if laid north and 
south upon our country with the Strait of Magellan at 
the Florida Keys, its most northern port, that of Iquique 
(e-ke'ka), would be in northern Newfoundland. 

Notwithstanding its long, narrow shape, Chile has more 
land than any country in Europe, except Russia. It is 
larger than our state of Texas. It is rich in mines, farms, 
and forests. It has the great nitrate beds at the north, 
the fertile soil of the long central valley, and the forests of 
the temperate zone at the south. 

The country contains nearly four million inhabitants, 




136 



CHILE 



137 



who, owing to the temperate 
climate, are vigorous and brave. 
They pride themselves also on 
being stronger than the people 
farther north. They are like 
them, however, in that they are 
the descendants of Spaniards 
and of the mixed Indian race. 
The difference is that the Span- 
iards of Chile were chiefly from 
the northern provinces of Spain 
and that the Indians whom they 
married were the famed Arau- 
canians, a stronger and braver 
race than those with whom the 
whites united in Ecuador and 
Peru. 

On our way to the coast at 
over two and one half miles 
above the sea we pass by Lake 
Ascotan, on the surface of which 
are what look like great cakes 
of ice. Our lips are dry and 
parched, and we long for a drink. 
The train stops at a station and 
we ask the conductor if some of 
the ice cannot be brought into 
the car. He replies that the 
white stuff is not ice at all. It 
is borax, and the water of the 
lake is not fit to drink. 

He brings us a lump of borax 
from a pile which has just been 




138 SOUTH AMERICA 

brought to the cars to be sent off to Europe. It reminds 
us of the finest spun silk wadded into a lump. Borax 
is used in making beads, glass, and cement, and for glazing 
pottery ware. It is of value also in preserving meat, fish, 
and milk, and in some kinds of medicines. It is good for 
sore eyes and as a wash for the hair. Most of the borax 
of the world comes from here and from the borax lakes of 
California. 

Is it not odd that such a thing could come out of the 
earth? Yes, but as we go farther down toward the sea 
we shall enter a region in Chile that is even more strange. 
There is a part of the desert where for hundreds of miles 
the sands are underlaid with a vast becl of nitrate of soda. 

We use large quantities of this nitrate in the United 
States, and more than a million tons are shipped to Europe 
from this desert every year. Nitrate of soda is employed 
for making explosives and munitions, and during the 
World War in Europe the most of the supply from Chile 
went to the United States and to the allied countries of 
England and France. In one year our factories used one 
million tons for ammunition alone. 'Germany was so 
blockaded she could not import nitrates, and she had to 
make her nitrates from the air by electricity. 

Nitrates are among our most important fertilizers. 
They are used in raising tobacco, sugar beets, grain, and 
many other food crops. Almost every American farmer 
uses more or' less of them, and they are exported largely 
to Europe. The Chilean government gets the most of 
its revenues from nitrates, and they are so valuable that 
cities have grown up on this barren coast, inhabited by the 
men who dig out the mineral and prepare it for sale. Such 
a town is Antofagasta, where we end our railroad journey 
from the plateau to the sea. It is one of the most thriving 



CHILE 



139 



ports on the Pacific coast of South America. Making our 
way on the longitudinal railway through the nitrate fields 
one hundred and twelve miles to the north, we come to a 
still larger city, Iquique, the chief nitrate port of the world. 

What a queer place for a town ! Iquique is on the edge 
of the sea below rugged hills. It is an oasis city, but 
there is not a blade of grass in the country about it. It 
has not a drop of water from year's end to year's end ex- 
cept that which is 

brought to it in an ^_^s^_^ ==u ____ (T*^ 
iron pipe, seventy- 
five miles long, 
which connects it 
with some springs 
near the foot of the 
mountains. 

Still, Iquique is 
a live modern set- 
tlement. It has 
stores, schools, 
newspapers, tele- 
phones, electric 
lights, and street 

cars. We can buy anything we want in its markets, in- 
cluding the most delicious fruits and the best of fresh 
meats. Such things are brought in by ships from other 
parts of the coast, and the money to pay for them comes 
entirely from nitrate. 

The nitrate is found on the east side of a low range of 
hills from fifteen to ninety miles back from the sea. The 
nitrate beds are usually covered with layers of salt rock 
and sand, but in some places they lie on the top of the 
ground. They were probably formed when the desert was 




Diagram of nitrate bed. 



i4o 



SOUTH AMERICA 



the bed of an inland sea, and the decay of vast quantities 
of seaweed containing nitrogen produced nitrate of soda. 
Nitrate is readily dissolved in water, and if the region were 
not rainless, the beds would have been long ago washed away. 
In mining the rock, a hole about a foot wide is bored 
down through the sand, salt rock, and nitrate to the soft 




Blasting the nitrate rock. 



earth underneath. A small boy is then let down into the 
hole. He scoops out a pocket just under the stratum of 
nitrate and fills it with powder, inserting a fuse which 
extends up over the top. The boy is then pulled out and 
the fuse lighted. A loud explosion follows, a cloud of 
yellow smoke and dust goes into the air, and the earth 
for a wide distance about is broken to pieces. The nitrate 
rock is then dug out with picks and crowbars. 



CHILE 



141 



The rock must be further treated, however, before it 
is ready for sale. Pure nitrate of soda is not found in 
nature, and the rock we see thus blown out of the desert 
is more than half dirt and sand. It is loaded on carts 
and carried to factories which have been built in the 
fields. 

The lumps of nitrate rock are thrown into tanks of water 




Opening up a trench in the nitrate beds after blasting. 



heated by steam and just as common salt dissolves in water, 
so the nitrate is dissolved while the dirt and sand drop to 
the bottom. After a time all the nitrate of soda has been 
taken out of the rock by the boiling water, which now looks 
like pale maple sirup. This fluid is drawn from the boiler 
and run into cooling tanks where the nitrate crystallizes 
and sinks, so that after a time each tank is rilled with what 



1 42 SOUTH AMERICA 

looks like white sugar, while the water on top has become 
almost clear. The deposit is nitrate of soda. The sur- 
face water is now allowed to now off into vats, where it 
is saved for the iodine in it. The nitrate is shoveled out 
into piles to dry in the sun. It is next bagged in sacks 
of three hundred pounds each and taken on the railroad 
to the seaports to be shipped to the markets. 

Is it not curious that men should go so far and work so 
hard merely to get food for crops ? Plants, like animals, 
cannot live and grow without nitrogen in their food. The 
most of the nitrate is used on lands which are expected to 
yield large and valuable crops. 

There is another thing that comes from the nitrate rock 
that is carefully saved. This is iodine, a crystalline sub- 
stance of a violet color, very valuable as a medicine and also 
used in making dyes. It is important as a disinfectant and 
was largely used in the hospitals and on the battlefields 
during the World War in Europe for the wounds of the 
soldiers. Iodine is obtained from the water out of which 
the nitrate has crystallized. 

Good plant foods are so valuable that farmers will pay 
high prices for them ; and vast fortunes have been made 
from another fertilizer found in this part of South America. 
This is guano, a mixture of the manure of birds, and of dead 
seals and fish found in beds on the seacoast, and on several 
volcanic islands not far from the shores of Peru and Chile. 
The guano islands are rocks as bare as the desert. They 
have not a blade of grass nor any green thing upon them ; 
they are merely masses of stone covered with what looks 
much like sand. 

If you stir this sand, it will give forth a smell like ammonia. 
Put upon the soil, it causes it to produce the most bountiful 
crops. If we should stay on the islands overnight, we might 



CHILE 



143 



see them covered by the birds which for ages have chosen 
them as their roosting places and homes. They are the 
homes of pelicans and sea gulls, which feed by the millions 
in the waters of this part of the Pacific. They often bring 
the fish they have caught in their bills to the islands and 
leave them there. During certain parts of the year many 





[t^Opf 








jf^K^^^BU 


i^F^ » v < ** ^JPf 


• . «."$" --'"V ■{>''' ■'-"." r~ ' ' ' 



These islands have been for ages the resting and roosting places for 
millions of pelicans, gulls, and other fish-eating birds. 

seals come here to breed, and they often crawl out of the 
sea upon these rocks to die. 

All this has been going on for many years, and the result 
is a deposit so valuable as manure that ships come here 
to take it to our country and Europe. A large part of the 
supply is now exhausted, but there is still some being ex- 
ported. There are houses upon the islands, put up for the 
men who dig out the guano, and on one or two of them are 



144 SOUTH AMERICA 

little railroads made to carry it down to the shores. Like 
nitrate, guano can accumulate and be preserved only in 
nearly rainless regions. 

i. Why is Chile sometimes called the "Shoestring Republic"? 
What countries bound it on the north and east ? What one of the 
United States is nearest it in size? What republic of South 
America ? 

2. What two products come from the desert? 

3. Describe Lake Ascotan. What are the chief uses of borax? 
Where else is it found in large quantities ? 

4. What is nitrate of soda? For what was it used in the World 
War? How did Germany get its nitrates during the war? Describe 
a trip through the fields and tell how nitrate is mined. Why is 
every American farmer, interested in Chile? Trace a shipment 
from Iquique to a farm near your home. How far does it travel? 

5. What other product comes from this salt? Why do our 
soldiers carry it with them in battle? 

6. Where are the two chief nitrate ports? Why are the guano 
islands of value to the world ? 



3*KC 



XVIII. ALONG THE COAST TO VALPARAISO 

IT takes us five days to go from Iquique to Valparaiso, 
the chief seaport of Chile. The sail is delightful. 
There are but few storms along the west coast, and almost 
every day we make a new port at which we see many 
strange things. The desert continues and we are always in 
sight of the Andes. Luscious grapes and oranges are 
brought to the steamer from the valley oases, and we now 
and then take on a few barrels of wine. 

While our steamer stops at Antofagasta we have time 
to visit one of the largest smelters of South America. It 



ALONG THE COAST TO VALPARAISO 145 

has been built here to smelt the silver out of the ore brought 
from the Andes. The ore is first ground to powder and 
made into bricks. As we pass through the yard we see 
a large plot of ground upon which are piled enough bricks 
to build a big house. It is perhaps the richest brickyard 
on earth. The bricks look like blocks of gray sand, but 
they are really silver ore, ground fine and molded into this 
shape so that the ore may be more easily smelted. The 
smelting is done in huge furnaces, the ore being heated 
with other materials which extract the pure silver. 

Farther down the coast we anchor at Coquimbo (ko- 
kem/bo) to take on a big load of copper. Hundreds of heavy 
bars or pigs of reddish-brown metal are brought out to 
our steamer on a lighter and stored in the hold. 

This copper comes from mines owned and operated by 
a great United States company, and the metal is sent 
north through the Panama Canal to New York. There 
are other large copper mines owned by the same company 
near Antofagasta and also at Braden in the mountains near 
Santiago much farther south. We learn that Chile has 
vast deposits of rich copper ore. It was until 1875 the 
chief copper producer of the world, but now it is surpassed 
by the United States and Japan. The copper is in nuggets 
or veins. The ore is mined, smelted, and shipped all 
over the world. 

Near Coquimbo is also a mountain of iron ore which 
belongs to one of our large steel corporations. The moun- 
tain contains more than two hundred million tons of ore 
rich in iron. The ore is taken out and sent via the Panama 
Canal to the steel works at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 
and other places not far from our Atlantic ports. 

Soon after leaving Coquimbo we notice that the shores 
have lost their gray, dusty look, and we occasionally see 



ALONG THE COAST TO VALPARAISO 147 

a tree and a patch of green grass. We are out of the desert 
at last. 

We sail about two hundred miles farther south and 
finally come to anchor in the Bay of Valparaiso. It is 
shaped like a half -moon, being walled with steep hills 
covered with luxuriant trees and beautiful flowers. A 
few miles inland are orange and lemon groves, vineyards, 
and trees bearing almost all kinds of fruits; and just 
over the mountains is the long valley of Chile, one of the 
richest farming and fruit-raising regions of all South 
America. The climate is like that of Italy and California. 

At Valparaiso we are not halfway to the southern end 
of the Chilean coast. In a land extending so far north and 
south we must expect all sorts of climates. It was hot at 
Antofagasta, but the winter air at Valparaiso is pleasantly 
cool, and near the Strait of Magellan the ground is often 
covered with snow. There is a great difference in the 
amount of rainfall. In the northern desert one never needs 
an umbrella, but Valparaiso has occasional rains throughout 
the year. It rains more and more farther south, and in 
some places so much water falls that the people jokingly 
say it rains thirteen months every year. 

But what is the cause of the change? Why is northern 
Chile dry and the greater part of southern Chile so wet? 
It comes from the winds. We have learned that the 
desert exists because all the water-laden winds come from 
the Atlantic and have had the water taken out of them 
before they reach the west slope. The winds of southern 
Chile blow from the Pacific Ocean toward the east. As 
they cross the Pacific they are rilled full of moisture, and 
when they rise over the land the cooling of the air causes 
rain to fall. Hence we find copious rains feeding the many 
streams that flow down the western slope of the Andes. 



148 SOUTH AMERICA 

On the other side of the mountains the country is almost a 
desert, for the Pacific winds are dry when they reach there. 

Valparaiso is almost as large as Indianapolis. It is the 
chief port on the west coast of South America, owing its 
growth to its excellent harbor and the rich country behind 
it. It was almost destroyed by a great earthquake in 
1906, but it has since been rebuilt. We come to anchor 
among steamers from different parts of the United States 
and Europe. They are loading and discharging goods. 
Some are taking on cattle, wheat, vegetables, and fruits 
for the cities of the desert farther north, and others are 
adding to their cargoes of nitrates, copper, and hides, 
which they are transporting from Chile to Europe. 

The business of the port has been greatly increased by 
the Panama Canal, and there are lines of steamers which 
sail regularly between Valparaiso and New York. They 
carry ores and nitrates as well as hides and wool, and 
eventually they will transport quantities of fruit, for Chile 
has all the fruits of California, and as it is south of the 
equator these fruits are ripe in the midst of our winter. 
Grapes, melons, and peaches may thus be sent in cold 
storage to New York and Boston. Returning, the ships 
bring back to Chile cotton and woolen goods, manufactures 
of iron and steel, electrical machinery, locomotives, motor- 
cars and tractors, and many kinds of farm tools. Shoes 
made* in New England are sold here, and leather made in 
Chile is imported by the United States. 

We take a boat to the shore, wondering how we can get 
up the hills to the houses above us. Valparaiso rises from 
the water like the grandstand of a ball ground. The 
streets are in terraces, one above another, so that the 
buildings at the top seem to hang out and threaten to fall 
upon those below. 



ALONG THE COAST TO VALPARAISO 149 

But see, there are cable cars climbing the hills ! It is by 
them we shall mount from one street to another, for the only 
level land in the city is a narrow stretch along the shore. 
This is the business part of Valparaiso, and it was built 
for that purpose. The hills were leveled and walls were built 
to protect the land from the waves. 

We step from our boat upon stone wharves and walk 
over streets as well paved as any in our cities at home. 
The buildings are large, and the stores have plate glass 
windows. There are English names over some of them, 
and we learn that Valparaiso has many Europeans who 
have come here to engage in trade. 

The people do not look very different from those of 
New York and Chicago. There are electric lights, motor- 
trucks, and automobiles. We hear boys crying the news- 
papers and remember, as we notice the signs of enterprise 
about us, that the Chileans are among the most progressive 
of the South American peoples. We hear many of the 
Chileans speak English, and as we look at our surroundings 
we wonder whether Chile is, after all, much different from 
the United States. 

, But stop ! Here comes a lady with a black shawl draped 
about her head, and behind her is a vegetable peddler with 
his stock in panniers on the sides of a donkey. There 
is a bread mule, ridden by the baker, and a milk mule 
is going down that side street. Get out of the way of that 
carriage with its high-stepping horses and look out for the 
horse coming around the corner ! Its rider wears a poncho 
and a broad-brimmed hat. He is probably a rich farmer 
from the country. We shall see many of his kind later on. 

What a queer street car is that one going by us ! It has 
seats on top as well as inside. See the pretty woman in 
uniform on the rear platform? She is taking the fares 




IS© 



ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA BY RAIL 151 

and making the change from her white apron pocket. 
There are women conductors in all the chief cities of Chile. 
The custom was introduced long ago when Chile was at 
war with Peru and the men were needed as soldiers. 

But Valparaiso has so many foreigners that we must go 
inland to see how most of the Chileans live. The country 
has many railways, and we decide to. make our first journey 
on the Transandine line. 



>>*j< 



XIX. ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA BY RAIL 

WE have already seen something of the railroads 
farther north which go from the west coast to the 
top of the Andes. Let us look at a map representing the 
railways in use and the new lines projected. Chile has 
iron tracks from one end almost to the other, and its public 
roads if joined together would reach around the world. 
The first railways of the country were built by a Calif ornian, 
and many of the rails, locomotives, and cars now in use 
came from the United States. Some of the railways are 
operated by electricity rather than steam. Fuel is costly, 
and the short, fast-flowing streams give an abundance of 
power with which to generate electric current. 

The road upon which we are riding to-day has brought 
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans together. It is the Trans- 
andine railroad from Valparaiso to Buenos Aires. Our 
car is a Pullman and we can see the country well as we go. 
Leaving Valparaiso, the train skirts the harbor, passing 
through the rich suburb of Vina del Mar (ve'na, del mar') . 

How soft the air is and how sweet the smell of the trees 
and grass after our long stay in the desert! Morning 



152 SOUTH AMERICA 

glories are blooming on the fences, and that great bush over 
there is loaded with roses. Now we whiz by an orange 
grove, almost close enough to pick the yellow balls peeping 
out of the leaves, now by vineyards, and now stop at a 
station at which pears, figs, and lemons are brought to the 
car windows for sale. How cheap everything is ! We 
can get a basket of grapes or all the oranges we can eat for 
a dime. 

By and by the road leaves the coast, and we climb over 
the hills to the central valley which forms the best farming 
region of Chile. There is. but little green except where 
the land is irrigated. See the men at work in the fields. 
There is one plowing. He has two white oxen joined to 
the plow by a pole. The pole is tied to the yoke, which 
rests on the necks of the oxen just back of the horns, to 
which it is fastened with strips of rawhide. 

The houses of the Chilean towns are similar to those we 
saw on the coast of Peru. There are many huts in the 
fields. They are made of mud with roofs of straw thatch, 
or sheet iron. 

As we cross the coast range the farms grow larger and the 
country is more thickly peopled. We ride for some time 
through the irrigated valley of the Aconcagua River with 
the mighty mountains rising above us. We now pass 
orchards of apples and peaches, with rich, well- watered 
gardens high up in the hills. The country grows wilder, 
and at last we are at Los Andes (los an'das), the last 
station of Chile. We are near the frontier of Argentina, 
where the road joins the Argentina railway that crosses 
the Andes and goes on over the pampas through the farms 
and pasture lands to Buenos Aires. We have not time 
now to make the whole journey, for we expect to go around 
the southern end of the continent by the Strait of Magellan. 




Bm»^b*3f Vine V- 



V 




On the Transandine railway. The cross marks the site of the 
Christ of the Andes, 2000 feet above the tunnel. 



i53 



154 SOUTH AMERICA 

So we shall ride on the railroad only to the top of the 
mountains ; from there taking mules to see something of 
this part of the Andes before returning to go farther south. 

Qur mules take us over the old wagon road that crosses 
the mountains at the Uspallata (oos-pal-ya/ta) Pass. This 
is about two and one half miles above the sea, and the place 
where it crosses the boundary between Argentina and 
Chile is marked by an heroic bronze figure upholding a 
cross, with these words on the pedestal : 

" Sooner shall these mountains crumble to dust than 
Argentines and Chileans break the peace to which they 
have pledged themselves at the feet of Christ the Re- 
deemer." 

This statue is known as the " Christ of the Andes." It 
was erected fifteen years before the close of the World War, 
and we are impressed with the fact that these South 
American republics so long ago strove for international 
peace and brotherly love. 

The old road over the Andes can be traveled easily in 
summer. In winter the snows are so heavy that men are 
often lost in the storms and sometimes spend many days 
on the way. That is why the little stone huts we pass 
now and then have been built. They are to shelter the 
passengers and mail carriers when caught in the storms. 
Men sometimes have to wait here for days for the storm 
to cease. The huts have no windows, and are more like 
bake-ovens than houses. There are also several rude 
inns where we stop. The hot soup tastes good, we are s.o 
cold. 

This range of the Chilean Andes is wild in the extreme. 
One of the worst parts of it is the pass called the Valley 
of Desolation. It is covered with volcanic rock upon 
which nothing grows. The only life to be seen are the 




The Christ of the Andes, a bronze statue erected to commemorate 
the making of peace between Chile and Argentina. 



15: 



156 SOUTH AMERICA 

condors soaring high overhead or the guanacos racing over 
the snow. There is a condor flying between us and the 
sun. It casts a black shadow upon the white snow. Con- 
dors are like vultures. They will eat any dead animal, 
and we are wondering whether the mighty bird is not 
waiting to see us drop in our tracks. 

The highest part of the Transandine railway was difficult 
to build. It has many tunnels. The cars are taken up 
the steepest part of the mountains by a track like that up 
Pikes Peak and Mount Washington. This track has three 
rails. In addition to the two of the ordinary railroad 
there is a third rail with rungs in it like a ladder. Upon 
this moves a cogwheel attached to the car, and the little 
engine runs behind the train and pushes it up the mountains. 
About two miles above the sea is a tunnel, and there are' 
also many snowsheds cut out of the solid rock to protect 
the trains from drifts in the winter. 

The Transandine railway is of great good to South 
American travelers. We shall see why as we go to Buenos 
Aires by the old route around the southern end of the 
continent. The voyage from Valparaiso by the Strait of 
Magellan takes from fourteen to sixteen days and is often 
stormy and rough. By the railway, the distance is eight 
hundred and eighty-eight miles, or less than that between 
New York and Chicago, and passengers are carried across 
the continent in twenty-nine hours. This makes the trip 
from Europe to the west coast of South America much 
shorter, and travelers from Great Britain to Australia 
can reach Buenos Aires in about twenty days, cross South 
America by rail, and take ship at Valparaiso, instead of 
making the long voyage through the Strait of Magellan, 
or the shorter one by the Panama Canal. 

This railway is now the chief route across South America 




The Valley of Desolation, showing Mt 
i57 



Aconcagua. 



i58 



SOUTH AMERICA 



from ocean to ocean. There is another transcontinental 
route that connects with the Argentine railway system by 
the road on which we came from La Paz to Antofagasta, 

but it is longer and 
higher and will never 
have much through 
passenger traffic. 
The Chileans plan 
to build several rail- 
ways south of where 
we are now, and 
some of these will 
go to the port of 
Bahia Blanca on the 
Atlantic. A road 
is planned from 
Paita, a port of 
Peru, to the navi- 
gable waters of. the 
Amazon, and the 
Oroya (6-ro'ya) rail- 
way will sometime 
be extended to other 
tributaries of that river. Indeed, South America is a con- 
tinent of the future, and vast territories now practically 
unknown will some day be opened by railroads. 

During our travels we have fine views of Aconcagua, 
the highest of the Andes. When the sky is clear it can 
be seen from Valparaiso, rising in a cone high above 
its sister mountain and dwarfing all the peaks near it 
except Mount Tupungato (too-poon-ga/to), which is over 
four miles in height. Aconcagua is more than twenty- 
three thousand feet high. It is the highest point on the 




The condor has a wing-spread of nine feet 
and soars easily above the highest peaks 
of the Andes. Like the vulture, it lives 
largely on carrion. 



SANTIAGO, THE CAPITAL OF CHILE 159 

South American continent and is almost three thousand 
feet liigher than Mount McKinley, the highest point in 
North America. Aconcagua is one of the mountain sights 
of the world. As we look at its snowy top we long to 
climb it, but if we should make the attempt we would 
probably meet with snowstorms and be frozen by the 
intense cold on the peak. There are cliffs near the summit, 
and at the top is a square plateau of ice about two hun- 
dred feet wide. Standing there, we might see great masses 
of fleecy clouds far below us, with the mountains stretching 
away to the east and the south. On one side would be 
the pampas of Argentina, and on the other, over the rich cen- 
tral valley of Chile, ninety miles away, would be the shining, 
silvery Pacific. This climb can be made only in summer, 
and our guides will not allow us to make the attempt. 
We must be satisfied with the magnificent views we had 
as we rode through the pass. So we remount our mules 
and slowly go back down the hills to the railroad. Here 
we take the train for Los Andes, where we change cars to 
the line which brings us at last to Santiago, the Chilean 
capital. 

o 

XX. SANTIAGO, THE CAPITAL OF CHILE 

SANTIAGO, the capital of Chile, is almost as large as 
our national capital and like it in many ways. Wash- 
ington is six hours distant from our chief seaport, New 
York. Santiago is aboiit six hours by rail from Valpa- 
raiso, the chief seaport of Chile. Washington lies in a 
basin only a little above sea level on the bank of the 
Potomac. Santiago is at an elevation of two thousand 
feet in the central valley of Chile. It is cut in two by 




i6o 



SANTIAGO, THE CAPITAL OF CHILE 161 

the river Mapocho (ma-po'cho) , and the basin in which 
it is built is walled by the snowy Andes and by low 
mountains which rise one above another from grassy plains. 

We have our Capitol Hill, one hundred and ninety feet 
above the Potomac. Santiago has its Santa Lucia 
(loo-se'a), a mass of volcanic rocks more than twice as 
high. Rising precipitously from a base of six acres in the 
midst of the city, Santa Lucia is perhaps the most picturesque 
park of the world. It is composed of rocks piled together 
in curious shapes. There is earth mixed with the rocks 
so that trees grow among them. Flowers and vines have 
been planted, and the sides of the hill are covered with 
English ivy. From its base to its summit tall eucalyptus 
trees rise out of the crevices of the rocks. It has wonderful 
ferns, dark caves, and beautiful grottoes in which are 
waterfalls, making altogether what might be called a hang- 
ing garden above the city, under the shadow of the Andes. 

There are winding driveways and footpaths which go 
round and round the hill to the summit where the band 
plays and where they have moving-picture shows under 
the sky. We walk up one of the paths to take a look over 
Santiago. It is early morning and the sun is just rising in 
the great blue dome of the heavens. It has caught the 
ragged, rocky peaks of the Andes at the back of the city, 
and the snows upon them look like frosted silver incrusted 
with diamonds. The foothills in the shadow seem to be 
of blue velvet, and away off in the distance are the plains 
with their rich growth of green. 

Our eyes now drop to the city below us. Red- tiled roofs 
extend far away on all sides. Each roof surrounds a patio 
in which is a garden with shrubs and trees. The scene is 
not unlike that we saw from the top of our hotel in Lima. 
The houses are built in the same style. They are close to 



162 SOUTH AMERICA 

the street and consist of rooms built around open court- 
yards. Some of them are of vast size although few are of 
more than two stories. 

See that wide avenue which cuts the city almost in 
halves ! That is the Alameda, the chief street of this 
South American capital. It is more than twice as wide as 
Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, and four miles in 
length. There are rows of poplars, oaks, elms, and acacias 
running through it from one end to the other, and stone 
aqueducts in which mountain water is flowing. A stream 
of traffic is moving back and forth on both sides of the 
avenue. We can see automobiles and motor-trucks winding 
their way in and out among the ox wagons and carriages. 

Taking our field glasses, we pick out the statues of many 
Chilean heroes under the trees, and see the stone seats 
upon which men and women are sitting enjoying the air. 
Boys on bicycles are riding along the paths in the center 
of the street, and at every few hundred feet there are two 
or three cows with their calves beside them. Each of the 
calves wears a muzzle. The cows are tended by women, 
who sell the milk warm from the cow. They are hobbled 
by ropes about their hind legs. 

But let us go down from the hill and take a street-car 
ride through the city. The seats on the roof are the best 
for sight-seeing, so we climb up, give our fare to the woman 
conductor, and are soon rolling along, as high as the tops 
of the One-story houses, through the suburbs and poorer 
parts of the town. A little later we are passing through 
the best business section. How fine the stores are ! They 
are equal to those of our cities at home. The show windows 
have all kinds of beautiful goods. There are several great 
arcades roofed with glass, which have been cut through the 
business blocks from one side to the other. 



SANTIAGO, THE CAPITAL OF CHILE 



163 



We go by the Palacio de la Moneda. It is a great build- 
ing, containing the offices of the president and those of 
some of his cabinet ministers. At the door are soldiers 
with drawn swords 
in their hands. 
Later on the presi- 
dent of Chile comes 
forth with the mili- 
tary guard of two 
hundred cavalry 
which accompanies 
his carriage on all 
state occasions. 
The Chileans are 
fond of pomp and 
display. We meet 
policemen with 
swords at their sides 
on every street 
corner, and we shall 
see soldiers drilling 
in every city and 
town. Chile is a 
republic with a gov- 
ernment not unlike 
ours. It has a presi- 
dent and congress 
and a system of courts 
gress is meeting. 




In Santiago arcades roofed with glass 
run through the blocks and furnish space 
for shops and shelter for shoppers. 



In that building over there con- 
The men going in are senators and dep- 
uties who make the laws just as we do in our congress at 
home. 

At the post-office department we learn that millions of 
letters and newspapers go through the mails every year 



1 64 SOUTH AMERICA 

and that telegraph lines cover the republic. The prices 
for telegrams are lower than ours. There are wireless 
towers in different parts of the country, and long-distance 
telephones over which one can talk from Santiago to all 
the chief cities. Many of the towns have electric street 
cars, and nearly every one is lighted by electricity. Later 
on we visit the museum, the national picture gallery, and 
the public library, which has more than one half million 
volumes. We go to the colleges and spend some time in 
the public schools. The schools are much like ours, save 
that the girls and the boys are kept in different buildings 
and the children of the lower grades study out loud. Chile 
has a good public school system. There are schools in 
every city and village, although only one out of every five 
children attends school. Santiago has two large univer- 
sities, and there are also schools of mines, of engineering, 
of agriculture, and for the army and navy. 

The Chileans are so strong, progressive, and intelligent 
that they have been called the Yankees of South America. 
This is largely because they have a temperate climate 
like ours. Although their language is Spanish, many of 
the people speak also French and English, and some have 
been educated in Europe. In all the cities there are daily 
newspapers. We meet newsboys on almost every street 
corner, and find large bookstores in the business sections. 

During our stay at the capital we are invited to visit 
the homes of some well-to-do Chileans. . We are surprised 
at the size of their houses. They are of only one or two 
stories, but many have forty or more large rooms which 
are furnished as expensively as the palaces of our mil- 
lionaires. They have fine paintings and statues, and those in 
the suburbs have large gardens about them, in which are 
lemon and orange trees and all kinds of beautiful flowers. 



A VISIT TO A CHILEAN FARM 165 

But how about the poor ? All the Chileans cannot be 
rich. No, indeed. There are poor people everywhere. 
We see them driving carts, carrying goods on their backs 
through the streets, and engaged in all sorts of hard labor. 
We shall find them living in mud huts on the farms, and 
we remember how we rode on the top of the street car 
through sections of Santiago filled with low one-story 
houses where whole families five in one room. In many 
cases the poor people sleep on the floor, and their food 
costs but a few cents a day. They are of the mixed race 
of Spaniards and Indians. We shall see much of them in 
our trips through the country. 

XXI. A VISIT TO A CHILEAN FARM 

WE are starting to-day from Santiago through the 
central valley of Chile, which lies between the main 
range of the Andes and the low mountains which border 
the coast. It is over a hundred miles wide in places and 
as long as from New York to Pittsburgh. This valley is 
rich, for it is covered with earth washings from the moun- 
tains, and the soil is several hundred feet deep. It is 
divided into large estates upon which all the fruits and 
grains of the temperate zone are grown, and where sheep, 
cattle, and horses are grazed in great droves. The chief 
crops are wheat, barley, and oats. There are great or- 
chards and vineyards, and almost one half billion pounds 
of grapes are gathered in a single year. The valley is 
like the central valley of California in position, climate, 
and products. Chile is one of the chief wheat countries 
of South America. It ranks next to Argentina, and 
millions of bushels are exported every year. 



A VISIT TO A CHILEAN FARM 167 

There are few countries where farms are so large or 
their owners so rich as in Chile. More than half the 
people are engaged in farming, but the land is owned by 
a very few families. We meet men who each have thou- 
sands of acres, and the wealthier farmers live like lords 
upon their estates or haciendas (a-syen'das) . Agriculture 
is profitable in Chile. The country annually produces 
millions of bushels of wheat and barley, millions of gallons 
of wine, and the best horses and sheep on the west coast 
of South America. 

Most of the farms are in this great central valley. They 
are irrigated by the streams from the mountains, and often 
are cultivated like gardens. The fields are divided by 
canals bordered with poplars, eucalyptus, or other tall 
trees. Some of the estates have stone walls about them, 
and others have fences of wire or boards. We look in 
vain for barns, haystacks, and farmhouses like ours. The 
only buildings are the vast one-story homes of the owners 
and the mud huts of the workmen. Huge carts drawn by 
oxen with yokes tied to their horns are used for farm 
wagons, and the plows are dragged through the furrows 
by the same clumsy beasts. The more enterprising 
Chileans, however, have been lately introducing modern 
machinery, and some of the rich farmers have tractors, 
plows, threshers, and reapers made in our country. Some 
have their own electric power plants, operated by the 
streams which flow through their farms. 

W T e visit one of the farms and are entertained by the 
owner. Our host is a rich haciendado who lives in San- 
tiago, and comes here only in summer, but nevertheless 
has an enormous establishment. His house has several 
acres of rooms, all on the ground floor. The residence 
is composed of one-story buildings with red tiled roofs, 



A VISIT TO A CHILEAN FARM 169 

mud walls, and brick floors, surrounding green courts and 
gardens. Groves of trees, some of which are one hundred 
feet high, shade the houses. , 

There are many other guests at the time of our visit, 
among them about thirty children. Nevertheless, when 
we go out to ride there are horses for all. The smallest 
children are tied to the saddles to keep them from falling, 
for the children learn to ride when quite young. Every 
child of this farmer has his»own pony, and we see boys and 
girls between the ages of four and fourteen galloping over 
the fields holding their seats like men and women. 

The farm is so large we might ride all day through the 
fields and not visit it all. The chief roads are fined with 
Lombardy poplars. 

We are delighted with the horses. Their gait is so easy 
that we can remain in our saddles for hours without tiring. 
They are directed by pressing the reins against the neck, 
and not by pulling at the bit as we do. The reins are 
usually left loose, and as a result the horses are seldom 
hard in the mouth. Later on we look at stock. There 
are great herds of fine cattle and flocks of fat sheep. The 
crops are growing luxuriantly, and the vineyards and 
orchards are loaded with fruit. 

We ask how such a place is managed. It has a major- 
domo, or chief, who organizes his laborers much like an 
army. Each overseer has so many men, and he tells each 
man what to do every day. Books are kept to show just 
what money is paid out and what for, so that the owner 
knows how well each field is paying. 

Indeed, the only poor things on the farm are the inquilinos 
(en-ke-le'nos), or farm hands. They are the laboring class 
of the country, somewhat like the Indians we saw in Peru 
and Bolivia. They come of the mixed race of Spaniards 



170 SOUTH AMERICA 

and Indians, inheriting the bravery of both. The Peruvian 
and Bolivian Indians are afraid of their masters ; the 
inquilinos are not. They carry knives, and the employer 
who would strike one of his laborers would probably be 
stabbed in return. Nevertheless, it is said that the in- 
quilinos love their masters, and they seldom leave the 
estates upon which they were born. 

Let us enter one of their huts. What a contrast to the 
luxurious city home of the owner ! The walls are of mud 
and the roof is of thatch. The ground forms the floor and, 
in this case, the bed of the family. Two boxes and a table 
are the only furniture. The hut has but one room about 
fifteen feet square, and we are told that eight persons live 
in it. It seems impossible that they can exist in such 
close quarters, and when we learn what they eat we wonder 
the more. Their breakfast usually consists of a double 
handful of toasted wheat flour mixed with water into a 
mush or baked as a cake. At noon they have a bowl of hot 
beans, and for supper, or dinner, as they call it, a second 
bowl of beans, to which is added some toasted meal. The 
inquilinos seldom eat meat, preferring to spend their money 
for drink. 

As a result of this mode of living many of the children 
die, but those who survive are able to withstand almost 
any hardship. The men are so strong that four of them 
can easily lift a piano on their heads and trot away 
with it. I have seen them carrying nitrate bags weighing 
three hundred pounds each and tossing them about as 
though they were feathers. 

The inquilinos are polite. They are kind to their 
families, and are always ready to help one another in. 
trouble. It is difficult to teach them habits of thrift ; but 
common schools have now been established almost every- 



A VISIT TO A CHILEAN FARM 



171 



where, and it is believed that they will in time reach a higher 
state of civilization. 

1. Mention two important metals we get from Chile. Locate 
Coquimbo. Why is it important to us ? What two South American 
countries produce the most copper? Compare their product with 
that of the United States. From what other countries do large 
supplies of this metal come ? (See Table XL) 

2. Give an airplane view of Chile. Describe the three different 
sections as to climate and products. Why is northern Chile so dry 
and southern Chile so wet ? 

3. Describe the port of Valparaiso. How far is it from New 
York ? From San Francisco ? Mention some of the goods awaiting 
shipment to the United States. What do we sell to the Chileans? 
Trace the route of a shipload of our cotton from New Orleans to 
Valparaiso, via the Panama Canal. Trace a cargo of iron ore from 
Coquimbo to Bethlehem, Pa. A cargo of copper from Antofagasta 
to New York via Panama ; via the Strait of Magellan. 

4. What great American port was destroyed by an earthquake? 
Compare it with Valparaiso. 

5. Why do the cities of Chile have women street-car conductors? 

6. Compare your trip across South America by rail with one from 
San Francisco to New York ; from New York to Chicago. How 
far is it from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso? How long does the 
journey take? Mention other possible routes from ocean to ocean. 
Why are some of the railways of Chile operated by electricity? 

7. What is the highest mountain of the Andes? Compare it with 
Mount McKinley, Mount Elbruz, Mount Everest. Describe the 
"Christ of the Andes." 

8. In what ways is the capital of Chile like the capital of the 
United States? How does the government resemble ours? What 
is the chief religion of Chile? Explain why the Chileans have been 
called the Yankees of South America. 

9. Why is the central valley of Chile like California ? Compare 
it with southern Chile. Compare one of the farms with a farm 
near your home. What do they grow on these farms ? What are the 
principal wheat countries of South America? (See Table X.) 

10. Who are the inquilinos ? How do they live ? 



172 SOUTH AMERICA 

XXII. SOUTHERN CHILE AND THE 
ARAUCANIANS 

WE have left our friends in the country and are again 
on the train. We travel several hundred miles 
southward through the great central valley. On our left 
are the snowy Andes with steam rising here and there from 
a volcanic peak. We cross little rivers and go through vast 
wheat fields cut up by ditches in which clear water flows. 

How many vineyards there are ! The hills are covered 
with low grapevines now brown and leafless, for it is winter. 
See that drove of cattle at the side of the road, with the 
men on horseback driving the animals this way and that. 
They are rounding up the young and branding them with 
hot irons. In the next field are more than a thousand 
horses, and we shall pass many cattle on our way farther 
south. 

See the trees which border the fields ! The irrigating 
ditches are lined with lofty poplars all leaning north, blown 
so by the winds, which usually come from the south. They 
look like hedges a hundred feet high running between the 
green fields. 

What is this broad stream we are crossing ? It is the 
Biobio (be-o-be'o), the largest river of Chile. It rises in 
the Andes not far from the Argentine boundary and flows 
across the country, emptying into the Bay of Concepcion. 
How wide it is ! The steel bridge which we cross is one of 
the finest in South America ; it seems more than a mile 
long. 

There are woods on the banks of the Biobio, and from 
now on we shall frequently be in the forests. There are 
no more irrigating ditches, for the rains furnish plenty of 
water for the woods and the crops. We have at last come 



SOUTHERN CHILE AND THE ARAUCANIANS 



173 



into the forest region of Chile. It extends from here to 
the Strait of Magellan, and we see cypress, oak, beech, and 
other hardwood 
trees of the temper- 
ate zone. The bark 
of many of the trees 
is good for tanning, 
and we shall find 
large tanneries and 
other leather- 
making industries 
here and farther 
south. 

The wheat fields 
we are now passing 
have been cut out 
of the woods. They 
look like our fields 
in the new lands of 
the Northwest. 
There are stumps in 
them. The houses 
of the poor are made 
of logs. We see 
men at work felling 
the trees. Those 
long teams of oxen 
are dragging out 
lumber, their big, 
soft eyes looking 
sadly at us as they painfully pull the heavy loads by their 
heads. 

Notice the people at the station. How different from 




Araucanian Indian — bronze statue in 
Santiago. The Araucanians of Chile were 
much better fighters than the Incas of 
Peru or the Aymaras of Bolivia. 



174 



SOUTH AMERICA 



the laborers we saw in the north! They are dark faced 
and fierce looking. They are more warmly clad. The 
men wear ponchos ; and many of them have on high boots 
covered with mud. 

Listen to that group at the corner. They are talking in 
German and they do not look like Chileans. They are 




Araucanian Indians weaving ponchos. 



German settlers who have come from Europe to farm the 
land, .which the Chilean government sells to immigrants 
at a low price. We shall see many Germans in this part 
of Chile. They have taken up farms • and often own 
stores and factories. The city of Valdivia (val-de'vya) has 
large tanneries in which German workmen make fine leather 
for shipment to Europe. The trees have good bark for 
tanning, and the many cattle make the hides cheap. 



IN THE COAL MINES OF CHILE 175 

But who are the copper-colored people we meet every- 
where ? They wear gorgeous ponchos woven in stripes of 
bright colors. The women have bare arms. They wear long, 
blanketlike dresses wrapped tightly over their chests and 
falling to the feet. Some have square silver earrings half 
as big as a schoolbook and as thick as its cover. Others 
have silver plates on their bosoms and bands of silver 
beads about their ankles and necks. 

They are Indians, the descendants of the famed Arau- 
canians who inhabited Chile when the Spaniards first came. 
They were noted for their bravery, and were quite as brave 
as our Indians. It is said that more Spanish lives were 
lost in attempts to conquer these Indians than in all the 
Indian wars in Mexico and Peru. The struggle lasted 
more than a century and ended by leaving to the Arau- 
canians a great part of southern Chile. Since then most 
of this has been taken away and they live on reservations 
or have farms of their own. Alcohol has made the Arau- 
canians a nation of drunkards, and their bad habits are 
fast killing them off. They are now less in number than 
when they first fought the Spaniards, and they grow fewer 
each year. 

XXIII. IN THE COAL MINES OF CHILE 

WE have left the land of the Araucanians and are now 
in the city of Concepcion (kon-sep-syon'), two hun- 
dred miles south of Valparaiso. It is the chief port south 
of Valparaiso, and its people say it will soon be the chief 
seaport of the southern Pacific coast. It has two excellent 
harbors near by, Arauco (a-rou'ko) Bay and Talcahuano 
(tal-ka-wah'no) , and is so connected by railroads with all 



IN THE COAL MINES OF CHILE 177 

parts of the country that it has a great trade. Valdivia 
and Puerto Montt (pwar'to mont) , two other ports farther 
south, are rapidly growing. 

Concepcion is the largest city of southern Chile. It is 
a flat Spanish town with a plaza in the center, and streets 
which cross one another at right angles. 

This part of Chile contains some of the chief coal fields 
of western South America. There is but little coal to the 
north of them, and coal is brought in by the . shipload 
from Australia and England. The coal of Chile is not so 
good as that which is imported, and it must be sold at 
a lower price. The coal fields He along the ocean for a 
distance of almost one hundred miles, and are so close to 
the sea that they can be worked at a profit. 

The steamer in which we are to take passage for the 
Strait of Magellan has stopped in Arauco Bay to take on 
coal. She now lies at anchor near Lota, with great barges 
of coal at her side. We see sooty-faced men standing on 
the coal and shoveling it on board. The ship is bound for 
Hamburg, via the Strait of Magellan. She must steam 
about five thousand miles before she can get fuel again. 
It takes a vast deal of coal to make steam for such a big 
ship. It uses more in one day than many families can 
consume in a year, and it will keep the men shoveling 
until night to load up. 

We are told that we shall have time to visit one of the 
mines before the ship sails. We are tired, and at first think 
it hardly worth while, until the captain says that some of 
the coal beds slope from the land down under the ocean, 
and that the coal they are now shoveling on board comes 
from under the sea. 

We want to see a mine, and call a small boat which is 
near the ship waiting for passengers to take us on shore. 



178 SOUTH AMERICA 

We are landed at the entrance to one of the greatest coal 
mines. The works above ground are large buildings situ- 
ated upon little islands connected with the coast by a 
railroad built upon piles. We ask the manager if we may 
visit the mines, and he kindly sends a guide with us. 

We' are taken to a great shaft or well in which, by a 
steam engine and pulleys, two elevators are raising cars 
filled with coal and lowering empty cars to the bottom. 
We step upon the elevator that is going down, and drop 
into darkness. Down, down, down we go, until at last 
rays of light shoot up from below. Our speed grows 
slower, and we stop at a long tunnel with a line of electric 
lights extending on and on in front of us, growing less and 
less in size until they fade into stars in the distance. 

As we step out of the shaft a train of loaded cars comes 
thundering toward us. We see that it is moved by an over- 
head trolley like the electric street cars of some of our cities. 

But there is another train going back into the mine. 
Can we get on ? Yes ; a special car with seats upon it 
has been attached to the train for us. We climb upon the 
platform and speed away over the track at the rate of twenty 
miles an hour. Within a few moments we leave the shore 
and are soon far out under the bed of the Pacific Ocean. 

We are moving through a tunnel which has been cut out 
of the great blanket of coal which lies between the layers 
of rock. As we go on we pass openings to the right and the 
left. They are the entrances to tunnels, made to get out 
the coal. 

Think where we are! We are hundreds of feet under 
the ocean, and big steamers are floating above us. And 
still it is dry. Not a drop falls on our clothes or hats, for 
the great beds of stone overhead are such that the water 
cannot get through. 



IN THE COAL MINES OF CHILE 179 

As we ride on, a train passes now and then. In the 
tunnels at the sides we see half-naked miners covered with 
dirt, digging the coal and loading it upon cars. 

What is that boom, boom, boom which sounds as though 
the sea were breaking through the rocks away at the right ? 
That is the blasting. There is no danger where we are 
now, but we must beware, for if such an explosion should 
occur near us it might blow us to pieces. 

What a great mine this is ! There are hundreds of men 
at work in it, and vast quantities of coal are taken out 
every day. 

We ride back to the shaft on a train of twenty-seven 
loaded coal cars, and another train arrives while we are 
waiting to ride to the top. 

Now we are back at the steamer again. It is almost 
ready to sail. It has loaded a thousand tons of coal in 
the last twenty-four hours, and in a few minutes will start 
on its long voyage to Europe around the southern end of 
the continent. 

The vessel carries a vast deal of freight. Below deck 
are three thousand tons of nitrate of soda, two thousand 
barrels of liquid honey, and great rolls of sole leather, all 
going to Europe via the Strait of Magellan. We have 
wheat, wine, and flour for Punta Arenas (poon'ta a-ra/nas) , 
situated on the strait, and similar freight for Buenos 
Aires and Montevideo (mon-ta-ve-da/o) . 

Everything is carefully packed, for we are about to enter 
some of the stormiest seas of the world, and what might 
be called the very home of the winds. About Cape Horn 
fierce winds blow all the year. There are many storms 
farther north, and seamen are glad when they reach the 
strait, where the waters are usually quiet. Moreover, we 
shall avoid some of the storms by traveling through the 



180 SOUTH AMERICA 

narrow channels, which run in and out among the moun- 
tainous islands along the west coast. This is the Smyth 
Channel route, the scenery of which is wonderfully grand. 

We are anxious to be off and are glad when, as evening 
falls, there is a rattling of chains and the anchor is raised. 
We hear the thump, thump, thump of the engines, and as 
we go to bed we are moving out of the smooth waters of 
Arauco Bay into the ocean. 

We awake to find the ship rolling. We have to hold to 
our berths while we dress, and a lurch of the vessel often 
sends us against the walls of our rooms. We climb up- 
stairs to the deck, brace ourselves against the rail, and look 
out over the sea. There are whitecaps everywhere. The 
waves rise and fall in huge masses. They whip the ship, 
striking its sides with a noise like a cannon. Now a great 
billow dashes against the ship, and now a still bigger one 
splashes over the top deck, flooding everything and making 
us run to our cabins. 

When we sit down at dinner we find the " fiddles" 
placed on the tables. These are networks of slats which 
hold the plates, cups, and other dishes so that a lurch of 
the ship will not send them into our laps. We lift our soup 
plates halfway to our mouths and balance them with the 
roll of the vessel, trying at the same time to get our spoons 
between our lips without spilling the soup. How few of 
our party have come out to dinner ! Many of us are 
seasick and prefer to stay in bed in our cabins. Even 
the bravest of us does not care quite so much for his food 
as he did upon land. 

A day or so later we have grown used to the motion and 
are all upon deck. We enjoy the changes which the rough 
sea and the storms bring every hour. Now we are shrouded 
in mist, and every few minutes the fog horn blows to warn 



IN AND ABOUT THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN 181 

other ships to keep out of our way. Now the fog lifts, and 
we see high waves rolling about on all sides. There is a 
break in the clouds, and away off to the east is a faint line 
of blue. That is the long, narrow island of Chiloe' (che- 
lo-a/) ; the mainland is much farther off. We are fortunate 
in securing a view, for in Chiloe the natives say it rains 
six days every week in winter and on the seventh the sky 
is much overcast. It is better in the summer, but even 
then the island is half shrouded in mist. As we sail on 
southward, there is more fog and snow. The sea is still 
rough, and we cannot safely walk about the deck until 
we enter the Gulf of Penas (pa/nyas), from which we go on 
into Smyth ChanneJ. 

It is only four o'clock when we enter the gulf, but it is 
already quite dark. We are now so far south that the 
winter nights begin early, and the electric lights are already 
turned on. The ship moves gently, and when we go to sleep 
there is no more motion than when in our own beds at 
home. 

XXIV. IN AND ABOUT THE STRAIT OF 
MAGELLAN 

WE have been moving slowly all night and awake to 
find the waves gone. We have left the open Pacific 
and are passing through the series of channels about four 
hundred miles long which wind in and out among the 
islands of western Patagonia and will bring us at last to 
the Strait of Magellan. 

The scenes about us are among the grandest of the world. 
We are sailing in a land of clouds among the peaks of the 
half-submerged mountains which form the southernmost 



i82 SOUTH AMERICA 

part of the great Andean chain. The channel is more like 
a narrow river than a branch of the ocean. It carries us 
in and out among rocky, grass-clad islands. On our left, 
ragged mountains rise almost straight from the water. 
The shores are green and matted with moss and evergreen 
trees. Higher up, the green is dusted with snow, and at 




At the Strait of Magellan. The glaciers extend down almost to 
the shore. A combination of sea, forest, mountain, and glacier 
. makes the scenery rival that of Alaska. 

the top there is ice. Some of the peaks are half hidden in 
cloud. Others nearer our vessel stand out bold and clear 
— great masses of emerald velvet under a lavender sky. 

The scene changes as we sail onward. The mountains 
assume curious shapes, and we imagine pictures in them 
such as one sometimes sees in the clouds. There is one 
that looks like the Great Pyramid of Egypt, and here is 
another that has a striking resemblance to the Sphinx. 



IN AND ABOUT THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN 183 

Now the hills in front of us appear to be climbing over one 
another like so many giants playing leapfrog, and farther 
on they rise in cathedrals and forts of green a thousand feet 
high. 

Now the sun comes out. It has penetrated that deep 
gorge and turned the black water to silver. It catches 
the snow which is dusted over the hills, and they are 
spangled with diamonds. It has touched the ice of that 
glacier and made it an immense lump of sapphire in a 
setting of silvery snow. Now the clouds are settling upon 
the channel and hiding the sun. See, there is a wall of 
them in front of our vessel. We are sailing into a snow- 
storm. A half hour later we shall move out into the sun 
again. 

How the sky changes ! Now it is blue overhead with 
fleecy white clouds scattered here and there through it. 
See those masses of vapor nestling in the velvety laps of 
the hills and wrapping themselves about the snowy peaks 
as though to warm them. Here, the clouds seem to rise 
from the water, making a wall across the channel as high 
as our ship. There, they come down from the top, and we 
sail out of the dry air into a mist so thick that we can 
almost wash our hands in it as we go through. 

Again we are out of the clouds. The air is clear. The 
sun is bathing the hills with its rays. The ferns, moss, 
and trees shine in their green luxuriance, and the many 
cascades, some as big as your wrist and others no larger 
than your finger, are threads and cords and ropes of silver. 
These waterfalls come from the glaciers and snows on the 
mountains. 

Is it not strange that moss and green trees can grow 
amid such surroundings ? Yes ; but it is only the highest 
peaks that are all snow and ice. The trees are evergreens, 



184 SOUTH AMERICA 

so close together that with snowshoes we might walk on 
their tops. A bed of moss, waist deep, grows among them, 
and great ferns, with leaves as long as our arms, extend 
out and cover every bare, rocky spot. The glaciers of the 
higher mountains often extend down into the forests 
almost to the shore, and now and then icebergs break off 
and fill up the channels. This route is sometimes impossible 
for ships, and as it is, at times we make our way through 
fields of glacial ice as clear as crystal, and green rather 
than white. There is a little iceberg now in front of our 
ship. It is no bigger than a city lot and not as high as 
the deck. As the sun catches it, it looks like a great 
emerald whose top is frosted with silver. 

But the machinery is stopping. What is the matter? 
The captain tells us he is going to rob the berg of some ice 
for the ship. The sailors are already bending over the 
rails. One of them has a long rope in his hands with a 
running noose at its end. Now he gives it a throw. The 
coil flies out and the noose catches on a horn at one corner 
of the iceberg. We have heard of lassoing cattle but 
never before of lassoing an iceberg. Yes, but it is not such 
a bad way after all. The rope is fastened to a wheel on 
the deck moved by the steam engine, and as the wheel 
turns, the rope is rolled up and the ship is drawn to the 
iceberg. 

Now some of the sailors have taken one of the ship's 
boats and landed upon the ice. They.are breaking off the 
top with crowbars and wrapping chains about the blocks 
of ice, which the engines of the steamer are raising to the 
deck by means of a derrick. Some of the blocks weigh 
several tons, and altogether we take on enough ice to last 
us the rest of the voyage. 

But what are those queer-looking boats making out 



IN AND ABOUT THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN 185 

from the shore? They look like canoes, and each has a 
fire in the center, about which are huddling brown-skinned, 
frowzy-headed men, women, and children. They are 
almost naked, and the man paddling the front boat wears 
little more than a vest. The boat behind contains several 
children who wear no clothes at all. 




These people have no home except a canoe in which a fire is always 
kept smoldering on sods. Although the climate is cold, they go 
almost naked. 



These people are savages who live along the far southern 
coast of western South America. They belong to a tribe 
called Alacalufes (a-la-ka-loo'f es) , and they are not like 
any Indians of the other parts of our hemisphere. They 
usually live in their canoes although they sometimes sleep 
upon land in little wigwams about as high as your waist. 
They make the wigwams by bending over the branches 
of small trees and tying them together. They then build 
a tire in front and crawl into their little houses for the 



186 SOUTH AMERICA 

night. They seldom sleep in the same place for more than 
a week, for it is much easier to build a new house than to go 
back home if they have wandered far. The men have 
bows and arrows to defend themselves. The women, as 
a rule, do the fishing, using lines without hooks. A little 
chunk of meat is tied to the end of the line. The fish 
swallows it and the woman jerks it into her canoe. 

The food of these savages is fish, mussels, and now and 
then a fox, seal, or otter. They are fond of whale meat, 
and if they can find a dead whale they will feast upon it 
for weeks. They do not seem to care for fresh meat, for 
they cut it into pieces and bury it, digging it up for food 
as long as it lasts. They are fond of tobacco and biscuits, 
and row about our ship holding out their hands and calling 
out in shrill voices, "Galleta! Galleta!" and "Tabaco! 
Tabaco!" the Spanish words for cake and tobacco. 

We wonder that they do not take cold. The hills on 
the shore are covered with snow, and we have on our 
heaviest garments. There is not enough cloth in the whole 
crowd below us to make a full suit for a four-year-old child. 
We pity the poor naked savages and one of us goes to his 
cabin and gets out a pair of old trousers. He throws 
them into one of the boats. See, that woman has grabbed 
them. She evidently does not know what they are for; 
she is tying them around her neck and fastening the legs 
over her chest. Until white people came these Indians 
used no clothes at all. A thick coat of whale oil or seal 
oil was enough to keep out the cold. Now they sometimes 
wear such cast-off things as they can get from the steamers, 
but as a rule go naked. 

The Alacalufes do not know the use of money. We try 
to buy some skins of them but they sneer at the sight of 
our silver and bank notes. They act differently as we 



IN AND ABOUT THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN 187 

show them some bright cloths and beads, and when the 
steward holds up a butcher knife one of the savages is glad 
to give him two skins in exchange. We ask them to come 
on board but they are afraid and draw back. They are 
not friendly to strangers and would kill a white man if 
they could catch one alone. 

On our way farther south we cast anchor night after night, 
for it is too dangerous to travel by dark. The scenery grows 
grander until at last we steam through a narrow channel, 
the mouth of which seems to be blocked by a great island. 
As we come nearer we see a wide waterway opening beyond, 
and the captain tells us the island is called Desolation Island 
and that we are at last in the Strait of Magellan. 

Standing at the stern, we look to the west, and off in 
the distance see massive rocks. They belong to Cape 
Pilar at the entrance to the strait from the Pacific Ocean. 
The channel in front of our vessel is the Strait of Magellan. 
It extends eastward from here for a distance of more than 
three hundred miles, winding its way in and out between 
the mainland of Patagonia and the islands of the archi- 
pelago of Tierra del Fuego (tyer'ra del fwa/go) until it 
opens into the Atlantic. In passing through the strait 
we are at times within a stone's throw of the shore. We sail 
under great mountains, and in the distance often see the 
high peaks of Tierra del Fuego and other islands of the 
archipelago. At the eastern end the passage widens, 
the land is low, and the waters almost bound the horizon. 

The Strait of Magellan is one of the commercial highways 
of the world, and until the Panama Canal was built it was 
the shortest way from Europe to the west coast of South 
America. It was discovered in 1520 by a Portuguese 
navigator, Ferdinand Magellan, and has been explored 
by others from time to time. 



188 SOUTH AMERICA 

Magellan passed through the strait from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific. He crossed that ocean to the Philippine 
Islands, where he was killed by the natives, and one of 
his vessels was burned. The other two ships sailed for 
the Molucca Islands, where they loaded with spices. One 
of the ships then sailed for Panama and was lost. The 
other, the Victoria, with eighteen men sailed for the Cape 
of Good Hope and then north to Europe, making the first 
voyage around the world. 

The strait is about three hundred and fifty miles long, 
varying in width from two to twenty-four miles. It has 
deep waters all the way, but winds about so that large 
sailing vessels, on account of the changing winds and the 
calms, prefer to go around stormy Cape Horn, although 
this takes them many hundred miles out of their way. 

It is different with the steamers. They can move 
whether the wind blows or not. Some of the vessels 
crossing the Atlantic between Australia and Europe and 
those going to and from the east and west coasts of South 
America still pass through the strait, although many now 
go by the Panama Canal. There are so many ships which 
use the strait that a city has grown up here at the tail of 
the continent to furnish them coal and other supplies. 
This city is about midway through the strait. It is Punta 
Arenas, or Sandy Point, and here we shall stay for a time. 

XXV. AT THE END OF THE CONTINENT 

PUNTA ARENAS is the southernmost city of the world. 
It is more than twelve hundred miles nearer the South 
Pole than Cape Town in Africa, and it is several thousand 
miles farther south than any city of Europe or Asia. Its 



AT THE END OF THE CONTINENT 189 

latitude is 53 south; it is farther from the equator than 
Winnipeg or Liverpool, and about as far south as Berlin 
is north of that line. The town is a lonesome one. There 
is no settlement of any size within a thousand miles of it, 
and its supplies are brought in by steamers. The reason 
for its location is its situation where ships can stop to coal 
and get fresh supplies for the long voyages they have yet 
to make. Not far from the pier we find great stores of 
coal and warehouses filled with foodstuffs and there are 
English and German steamers in the harbor. We come 
to anchor near a vessel from New Zealand. She has lighters 
beside her and the men are loading and unloading freight. 

We take a small boat to the pier and by a short walk are 
in the heart of the city. What a queer place it is ! The 
town has been cut out of the forest, and the hills about it 
are covered with woods. Nevertheless, it has wide, well- 
paved streets and a beautiful plaza faced by good houses 
and stores. The town is lighted by electricity and has a 
cathedral, fine public buildings, and many comfortable 
houses. We visit the museum to look at the beasts, birds, 
and reptiles of this far southern country, and in the stores 
buy some ostrich feathers, guanaco skins, and Indian 
baskets to take home. 

We are interested in the people we meet on the streets. 
There are many Chileans and also Danes, Norwegians, 
and Swedes who have a large share in the navigation of 
the strait. There are English and others who have come 
here to raise sheep, and we are told that the land is so good 
for -this purpose that many million pounds of wool are 
exported each year. 

During our stay we make a tour through the archipelago 
of Tierra del Fuego, which borders the southern end of 
South America. It is composed of hundreds of wooded 




IQO 



AT THE END OF THE CONTINENT 191 

islands which look very small on the map. Most of them 
are small, but all together they contain nearly as much 
land as Maine ; and Tierra del Fuego, the largest, is almost 
equal to West Virginia in size. 

Tierra del Fuego belongs to both Chile and Argentina, 
the boundary running north and south through it. The 
island lies just across the strait from Punta Arenas, and 
steamers go. there almost every day. We take passage 
upon one for Port Venir and from there make excursions 
by boat and on horseback. 

The island has a rim of mountains around the greater 
part of it. The mountains rise almost straight from the 
water, and huge glaciers hang down from them, now and 
then breaking off and falling into the sea with a terrible 
noise. The scenery is grand but the waters are rough 
and we have to move slowly. 

As we near the shore we see men here and there washing 
the sands for gold, and are told that in time of storms gold 
grains and small nuggets are frequently thrown up on the 
beach. Some of the nuggets are as big as marrowfat peas. 
This gold comes from ledges found near the shores of some 
parts of the island. The miners go out upon the beach at 
low tide and gather the sand which they wash for the gold. 
Gold, coal, and copper are found on the mainland not far 
from Punta Arenas. Balboa found gold in the Andes near 
Panama, and it is mined here and there in the whole length 
of that range, even to the Strait of Magellan. 

The vegetation of Tierra del Fuego surprises us. We 
are so far south that it seems that the country in winter 
should be covered with snow. It is not. The climate is 
much like that of Scotland. It is only on the tops of the 
mountains that the snow remains all the year, and the 
glaciers moving down their slopes are bedded in green. 



i 9 2 SOUTH AMERICA 

For a thousand feet up from the water the land is so cov- 
ered with trees, ferns, and moss that we can hardly make 
our way through, and some of the trees are as big as those 
of the tropics. The island has beeches eighty or ninety 
feet high and two yards in thickness. It has hardwood 
trees somewhat like those of our central states. Much of 
the forest is of evergreen trees, and the grass is green the 
year around. 

In the interior of the island we shall find great plains 
spotted with wild flowers. There are wild gooseberries, 
raspberries, and strawberries, and also wild grapes and wild 
celery. The farmers raise cabbages, potatoes, turnips, 
and peas. The pasture is so rich that the sheep are easily 
fattened. The mild climate is caused by the warm winds 
from the ocean. 

We have to ride carefully as we make our way inland. 
The land is often swampy, and we guide our horses this 
way and that to avoid the homes of the rats. Ground 
rats are the chief pests of Tierra del Fuego. They 
burrow through the earth and fill it with holes like those 
of a prairie dog town. They destroy the pastures and 
eat so much grass that the shepherds wage war upon them 
by driving herds of cattle over their burrows, thus trampling 
them to death in their homes. 

We stop some days with the sheep farmers. The sheep 
are kept in flocks of one or two thousand and are watched 
by shepherds on horseback. Each shepherd has dogs to 
help him. Most of the dogs are Scotch collies which seem 
to understand the motions of their masters almost as well 
as we understand language. A certain motion will send 
a dog to the front, another will bring him to the rear, 
and when the man raises his hand into the air the dog 
stops short. The shepherd can direct his dogs to the right 




The Ona Indians of Tierra del Fuego are tall and fine looking. 

They use bows and arrows and wear guanaco skins. 

i93 



194 SOUTH AMERICA 

or to the left, and, in fact, make them drive the sheep in 
any direction he pleases. 

The sheep of this part of the world* are not fed in winter 
from barns or haystacks. The grass keeps green all the 
year, and the only dangers are that the sheep may get lost, 
be stolen by the Indians, or eaten by wild beasts or vultures. 
The sheep are often so fat and heavy that when one falls 
into a hollow and rolls over on its back it cannot get up. 
It lies there kicking, and the vultures sweep down upon 
it and pick out its eyes. The vultures seem to understand 
that a blind sheep is helpless, and they keep on picking 
until it dies. After that they tear off the skin and eat every 
bit of meat from the bones. It is the duty of the men to 
be on hand when a sheep falls and help it to its feet again. 

We are interested in the Indians of Tierra del Fuego. 
The island has fierce savages called Onas who for a long 
time waged war with the shepherds. The Onas are among 
the finest-looking of the Indian race. The men are about 
six feet tall, and the women almost that height. They 
have high cheekbones, flat noses, and dark eyes. Their 
hair is black and straight. The men singe their heads 
close to the crown, and the women let their hair grow so, 
that it hangs over their shoulders. The Onas wear but little 
clothing except guanaco skins wrapped about their bodies. 
They live on the land but have no fixed homes. They do 
not like to stay more than a night or two in the same place, 
for they have an idea that evil spirits are after them and 
that they must move on. When they stop they merely 
make a hole in the ground about three feet deep and weave 
branches over it. They then crawl in for the night and 
cuddle together with their dogs about them for warmth. 
The chief weapons of the Onas are bows and arrows, and 
they get their food by hunting and trapping. 






AT THE END OF THE CONTINENT 



195 



Another Indian 
tribe is the Yaghans 
(ya'gans). It is 
largely confined to 
the southern part of 
the island. These 
Indians are much 
like the Onas except 
that they get their 
living from the sea 
rather than from the 
land. They eat fish, 
birds, fungi, oysters, 
and clams. They 
cook birds by put- 
ting red hot stones 
inside them and 
placing them on the 
coals. They roast 
eggs by standing 
them upright in the 
ashes before the fire, 
first breaking a hole 
in each egg to let 
the steam out. The 
men are good hunt- 
ers and the women 
excellent fishers, 
being more fearless 
than the men in 
swimming and in the 
management of their 
boats. 




ALKLAND IS. 
(British) 



Principal Railroads 



196 SOUTH AMERICA 

1. Where are the forests of Chile? Why? Where are the great 
forests of the United States? 

2. Why has southern Chile a great leather industry? 

3. Describe our visit to the coal mines. Compare it with a trip 
through a Pennsylvania coal mine. (See Carpenter's "North 
America.") Near what port are the Chilean mines? Mention 
three other important ports of south Chile. 

4. Find Cape Horn on the map. What is the Strait of Magellan? 
How was it discovered? Find out all you can about Magellan and 
the first voyage around the world. 

5. What is the southernmost town of the world? The northern- 
most ? Compare their distances from the poles. 

6. Describe our trip through the Strait of Magellan. Compare 
its climate with that of Scotland. (See Carpenter's "Europe.") 

7. What great island is at the southern end of South America? 
To what countries does it belong? Describe it. What is its chief 
industry ? 

8. Who are the Araucanians? Compare them with the Indians 
of Peru, of Bolivia, and of North America. Describe the Alacalufes, 
the Onas, and the Yaghans. 

XXVI. ARGENTINA — PATAGONIA 

THIS morning we are again in Punta Arenas, ready to 
start north on the eastern side of the continent. We 
shall make our way through Patagonia, which is the name 
given to southern Argentina. Argentina is one of . the 
richest and most healthful countries of South America. 
It has a vast territory. It is greater than all our states 
east of the Mississippi River. It extends from north to 
south through thirty-four degrees of latitude, farther than 
the distance between the north side of Hudson Bay and the 
Gulf of Mexico, and therefore has many different climates 
and products. In the warm north sugar cane, coconuts, 
and oranges grow. The central provinces are temperate 



ARGENTINA — PATAGONIA 1 07 

and are covered with wheat fields and pastures, while those 
of -the far south are almost a desert with a climate compara- 
tively cold. There sheep are fed on the sparse vegetation 
and the rivers furnish the water for some irrigated tracts. 

Most of Argentina is flat, and railways can be built at 
comparatively low cost. The country already has nearly 
one tenth as much railway mileage as the United States. 
It has more trunk lines than any other South American 
republic, and it is rapidly increasing this means of trans- 
portation. There are many great plains called pampas 
upon which one may travel hundreds of miles without 
seeing a hill. There are only a few low mountain ranges, 
with the high wall of the Andes in the west. 

Only a small part of Argentina is settled. In this respect 
the country is as the United States was many years ago. 
The population is now about as great as that of New York 
State, and is rapidly increasing. Immigrants from Europe 
are coming to work in the cities or to raise wheat, cattle, 
and sheep in the country. So many people have recently 
come that already every third man is a foreigner. Most 
of the immigrants are from Italy and Spain, although there 
are some Russians, Syrians, English, Germans, and French. 
Many Italians come over to work for the summer, when 
Italy has its winter,* going back home as the Italian spring 
comes. Argentina is glad to have immigrants. It gives 
them lands at low prices, and it has established free hotels 
at the seaports and in the interior, where they may stay on 
their way to their new homes. Many of the immigrants 
live in Patagonia, and we shall see some of them on our 
way north. 

Patagonia is the name formerly used for the whole south- 
ern end of the South American continent, extending from 
the Strait of Magellan to about forty degrees of south lati- 



198 SOUTH AMERICA 

tude. It once included southern Chile and southern Ar- 
gentina, but the name now applies only to the part east of 
the Andes. This will form the next scene of our travels. 
A coasting ship takes us from Punta Arenas around Cape 
Virgin on the eastern side of the strait, and we make our 
way along the coast, calling at Santa Cruz, Rawson, and 
other ports where we take on wool, and now and then stop 
for a short run into the interior. 

How bleak and bare everything is ! The water-laden 
winds come from the Pacific, and have dropped their rains 
in Chile west of the Andes. When they reach Patagonia 
they are dry and the whole country seems nothing but sand. 
There are no trees to speak of. The only green fields are 
in the river valleys where the land has been irrigated and 
in the west along the foothills of the Andes. The valleys 
have many orchards and vineyards, the latter producing 
thousands of gallons of wine every year. In the Chubut 
(choo-bootO province are millions of sheep, cattle, and 
horses, and in Santa Cruz, still farther south, about fifty 
million pounds of wool are sold in one year. At some of 
the ports mutton is being frozen for shipment to Europe. 
In this part of Argentina many of the farmers are Welsh- 
men. They are very thrifty and the towns are well-kept. 
A little later we are again on the sea, going north, and now 
we are sailing up the deep but narrow harbor of Bahia 
Blanca, on the edge of a more fertile part of the country. 

Bahia Blanca is the chief port of Argentina on the Atlantic. 
Buenos Aires is much larger, but it is on the Rio de la Plata 
River, more than one hundred miles from the ocean. Bahia 
Blanca is right on the sea, and has great elevators for the 
storing of grain, and the best of shipping arrangements. 
It has a good harbor with deep water at all times, and it is 
accessible to all parts of the country by railway. 



ARGENTINA — PATAGONIA 



199 



A railroad has been built from here over the desert pampas 
to the foot of the Andes. It will cross the Andes to Chile 
by a low pass and end at the port of Valdivia on the Pacific. 
This will be a shorter route from ocean to ocean than the 
Transandine rail- 
road farther north. 

Let us take this 
railroad and ride 
over the dry pampas 
to the beautiful lake 
of Nahuel Huapi 
(na-weT wa-pe') at 
the foot of the 
Andes, stopping 
now and then on 
the way. What a 
curious region it is ! 
We go for miles 
seeing nothing but 
sand with thorny, 
scrubby bushes 
growing here and 
there. There is but 
little grass, — so 
little, indeed, that it 

takes from three to five acres to furnish food for one sheep. 
It reminds us of the sage-brush country of our western 
highlands. 

How wild everything is ! There is not a fence to be seen. 
There are no barns, no roads, no farms, nor anything living. 
There is nothing but thorn bushes and sand. But stop ! 
What are those yellow animals galloping away to the right ? 
There must be fifty of them. They look like miniature 




A guanaco. Among native South Ameri- 
can animals, the llama, vicuna, alpaca, and 
guanaco take the place of cattle, sheep, 
and deer. 



200 SOUTH AMERICA 

camels. They are bigger than sheep and more beautiful 
than llamas. See how queerly they run. Their gait is 
more like short jumps than a gallop. What are they? 
They are guanacos, animals of the same family as the llama, 
only wild and not quite so large. They are hard to shoot, 
for they have a keen sense of smell and can scent a hunter 
a full mile away. Guanaco flesh tastes much like venison 
and is delicious when roasted over the coals. The fur is of 
a tawny yellow spotted with white ; three or four skins 
sewed together make a beautiful rug. 

Now we have left the guanacos far in the rear. . We are 
again surrounded by nothing but thorn bushes and sand, 
with hundreds of spots of white far off to the right. The 
white spots are moving. They are sheep, and that little 
brown figure running here and there among them is their 
shepherd on horseback. He is so far off that he looks like 
a pygmy, and his horse looks the size of a dog. 

But what are those gray birds swimming through the 
air over the plains? They are coming toward us. That 
is a flock of rheas or South American ostriches. Their 
wings are outstretched, and they hold their heads far in 
front of them. They fairly skim over the ground, their 
long legs kicking up a dust as they go. Some of them run 
very fast. There is one which has started up out of the 
bushes and is racing our train. We are going at a speed 
of forty miles an hour. The ostrich keeps up with us a few 
minutes and then drops behind. 

There are many wild ostriches through this whole region, 
and had we time we might capture one. The proper way 
to catch them is by means of a bola, a long string of tough 
leather with an iron ball as big as your fist at each end. The 
hunter rides after the ostrich on horseback and when he 
gets near enough, throws the bola so that the string 



ARGENTINA — PATAGONIA 



20 1 



wraps itself around the legs of the bird, which falls to the 
ground. 

Ostriches are not easy to catch. When hunted they 
often squat down and bide their heads in the sand. Many 
people who have not 
seen these birds in 
their homes think 
this foolish, but on 
the desert there 
could be nothing 
more cunning. The 
feathers of the os- 
trich are of much 
the same color as 
the bushes of the 
pampas, and when 
one of them hides 
his head he looks 
like a gray bush, and 
the hunter may ride 
by without noticing 
him. 

These ostriches 
are not like those of 
Africa which furnish 
the fine feathers our 
mothers use in their 
hats. Many of the 
African ostriches are 




The South American ostrich is a distant 
cousin of the African bird. His plumage 
is of little value. 



found wild in the Sahara desert, and they are reared on 
the farms of South Africa. The rhea is much smaller and 
its feathers are coarser. The feathers are used to make 
dusters, and rugs are made of the breasts of the young 



202 SOUTH AMERICA 

birds. Would it not be fine if we could each take home 
a rug of ostrich breasts? 

But here we are at a station. What a lonesome place for 
a town ! And such a town ! The half dozen houses are 
gray, one-story structures built of sheet iron imported from 
the United States. The station itself is of iron, and that 
water tank there stands upon a framework of the same 
metal. The windmill above the tank came from Chicago. 

The men on the platform are fierce-looking fellows with 
bright-colored ponchos over their shoulders. They are 
gauchos, or Argentine cowboys, who herd the cattle and 
now and then work for the sheep farmers at shearing time. 
We shall see more of them farther north. 

Now we are again on the desert. We have left the cars 
for a time and are alone on plains as dry as the coast of Peru. 
Our cheeks burn and our lips crack under the hot sun in 
the clear, thirsty air. 

What is that cloud coming up ? That surely is the sign 
of a storm ! Hear the wind ! It is blowing with the force 
of a blizzard and driving the cloud toward us. Yes, this 
is a storm, but not a rainstorm. The cloud is now between 
us and the sun, which has become a great round red ball 
instead of the fiery white furnace it was a moment ago. 
The cloud is not water. It is dust and sand. We are in 
the midst of one of the sandstorms of the pampas. Our 
guide drags us down into a hole he finds in the desert and 
draws our blankets over the top. 

Soon the storm is upon us. The sand comes down like 
fine hail. It sifts through the blankets and we close our 
eyes. Now it is over, and we find we have a heavy load to 
raise when we push back the blankets. How queer we 
look ! We thought we were white, but the sand which has 
drifted through the blankets has turned us brown. Our 



ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 203 

nostrils, ears, and mouths are filled with dust, and our 
clothes are covered with sand. 

Such storms are common on the pampas of southern Ar- 
gentina. The dust is as fine as flour. It comes in great 
clouds, and in the cities it covers the houses. It creeps 
through every crack and crevice, closed doors and windows 
being no protection. The dust goes with the wind and is 
often followed by a drenching rain. This wets the dust in 
the air and for a time it really rains mud. If the rain does 
not last long the houses are covered with mud, and it is only 
when the rain is heavy that they are washed clean. These 
storms sometimes stop the railroad trains, steam plows like 
our snow plows being used to keep the tracks clear. 



XXVII. IN ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE 
PAMPAS 

ALONG ride by train has brought us back to Bahia 
Blanca. Here we again take the railroad and are 
soon traveling through some of the great pasture lands Sf 
the world. Some parts of the country are fenced with 
barbed wire, but most of it is just as nature made it — vast 
pampas which extend on and on until they lose themselves 
in the sky. 

Now we see a flock of two thousand sheep browsing on 
the rich grass. Their white wool shines among the dark- 
green bushes. We hear the baa, baa of the lambs and the 
coarser voices of the old sheep as we go by. 

Over there on the horizon is a drove of horses, mere brown 
specks against the blue sky, and between us and them a 
long train of huge carts, each hauled by eight oxen, is drag- 




204 



ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 205 

ging its weary way oyer the plains. Those carts are filled 
with wool or hides, and the men walking beside them are 
driving the teams to the station. 

In these pastures is found the chief wealth of Argentina. 
The country has many million head of live stock. It has 
so many that if they were divided equally among the people, 
each family would have fifty sheep, twenty cows, five horses, 
and seven or eight hogs. We might travel back and forth 
across the republic and, with the exception of the rude huts 
of the herdsmen and now and then the larger buildings of 
some rich farmer, see little else than great flocks of sheep 
and droves of cattle and horses. 

Argentina ranks third among the sheep-growing coun- 
tries of the world. The sheep are watched by shepherds on 
horseback. They can feed out of doors all the year round, 
for the climate is mild and there is good grass in all seasons. 

We see very few barns and haystacks as we ride over the 
pampas. The farmers seldom raise hay or corn for their 
stock. It is necessary only to let the animals graze and 
give them some salt now and then. The sheep must be 
watched on account of the vultures. 

The shearing is done once a year, sometimes by hand 
and sometimes by machinery. The wool is cut off and put 
in bales much as we bale cotton. It is then shipped to 
Bahia Blanca or Buenos Aires and there transferred to 
steamers for Europe or the United States. Much of the 
wool goes to Boston, and is woven to cloth in the woolen 
mills of New England. 

For a long time the sheep of Argentina were reared for 
their wool only. The home demand for mutton was small, 
and in the city chops cost only a few cents a pound. Now 
mutton is exported by the shipload to Europe, and there 
are great factories at Buenos Aires and even as far south 



206 



SOUTH AMERICA 



as the Strait of Magellan which freeze it for export. In 
these factories the sheep are killed and dressed, and then 
hung in rooms which are made so cold by certain chemical 

processes that the 
meat soon freezes 
stiff. In this state it 
will keep. It is then 
wrapped in white 
cloth and carried to 
the refrigerators of 
the steamers which 
take* it to Europe. 
As soon as it lands 
there it is thawed 
and placed on the 
butchers' counters 
for sale. It then 
looks like freshly 
killed meat and 
when cooked tastes 
like fresh mutton. 
Beef, as we shall see 
later, is exported in 
the same way. 

But let us leave 
the train and ride 
on horseback over 
the pampas. Here 
we are at the home 
of a shepherd. How rude it is ! It is a hut made of poles 
covered with mud, and its roof is of straw thatch. We 
have to stoop to enter the door, and we look about in vain 
for chairs for our party. The hut is scantily furnished. 




ARGENTINA. URUGUAY 
AND CHILE 

CATTLE 

NUMBER 

EACH DOT REPRESENTS 6.000 



• TATUTI UIL1* 



ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 207 

Much of the cooking is done on the ground outside. The 
oven is that round mound of mud which looks like a 
beehive. 

The shepherd lives with his little family all alone here, 
away out on the plain. He spends the day riding about 
among the sheep, and at night drives them into that corral 
near the hut. He works for a rich farmer who owns thou- 
sands of acres of land and more than one hundred thousand 
sheep. He tells us that the estate, or estancia (es-tan'sya), 
is so large that we might ride all day in one direction and 
not come to its end. We learn later that much of the land 
of Argentina is in large tracts. Land is not sold by the 
acre, but by the square league, one of which contains nearly 
six thousand acres. 

But suppose we go farther over the pampas. We gallop 
for miles, now riding where the turf is soft, fresh, and green, 
and now where the grass is gray, dead, and coarse. This 
is the natural grass of the pampas. The green turf has been 
pastured year after year. When so treated the coarse grass 
disappears and a more tender and richer grass springs up. 

But see that smoke away off to the right. The flames 
are rolling up from the earth and dense white clouds are 
blowing toward us. Is that a prairie fire away down here 
on the pampas? Don't be alarmed. The men who have 
lighted the fire have burned a strip around their fields so 
that the fire will not go beyond them. They are burning 
off the coarse grass and thorn bushes, after which a better 
vegetation will come. The owners say it improves the 
land to burn it over once every few years. 

We have now left the sheep farm and are passing through 
one devoted to cattle and horses. It is far away from the 
cities and in one of the least developed parts of the country. 
The estancia is a large one, and we might ride eighty miles 




208 



ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 209 

in a straight line and not get across it. It has great droves 
of cattle and thousands of horses. See, they are branding 
the animals. They have driven the horses into an inclosure 
fenced by stakes. Now they have caught one with a lasso. 
They are driving him about in a circle. Now he is tired 
and they pull him down to the ground. One man sits on 
his head and another holds him tight by a rope fastened 
about his front legs, while a third seizes a hot iron from a fire 
near by and burns a mark on his side. That brand is the 
mark of the owner, and by it he can claim the horse if it 
gets lost. 

In the past, droves of wild horses grazed on the pampas. 
There were so many that they were killed for their hides 
and tallow, and one could often see horse hides tied to stakes 
and left in the sun to dry. The animals then sold for a few 
dollars, and each and every native owned one or more. 
Now Argentina has taken to breeding fine horses, and it 
has some of the best of all South America. Every spring 
there are horse sales near Buenos Aires which bring several 
million dollars, and where a single animal will sell for several 
thousand dollars. Draft and race horses are exported to 
England, and racing is one of the chief sports of the Ar- 
gentines. 

The cattle have been greatly improved, and to-day Ar- 
gentina stands forth among the cattle-growing countries 
of the world. In no part of our country have we finer ani- 
mals than are reared on these large farms. Not long ago 
a Shorthorn bull was sold in Buenos Aires for forty- five 
thousand dollars, and Hereford calves have sold for as much 
as two thousand dollars. A great dairy business is fast 
growing up, and outside Buenos Aires are dairies with 
steam churns, each of which will make five hundred pounds 
of butter an hour. 



ARGENTINA — LIFE ON THE PAMPAS 21 1 

Rearing cattle for their meat has become a great industry, 
and there are large packing houses at Bahia Blanca, Buenos 
Aires, and other places where thousands of beeves are killed 
daily and exported in cold storage ships to Great Britain 
and the United States. These establishments are called 
frigerificos, or freezing establishments. Some of the largest 



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IIS 


•-4..... 


1 


N 


pij 


ift: 




i |* 
1 11 


^^^Wjtok _ V 


■>:■■■■. '=■=■-;.. .',.■■<.-"■"; ;;■>?';■;■; 







Churns run by electricity, which make five hundred pounds of 
butter an hour. . 

of them belong to American capitalists and are associated 
with our chief packing companies at Chicago. 

During our visits to the stock farms we go about with 
the gauchos who attend to the cattle, riding on horseback 
with them for miles over the great fields. They are dif- 
ferent from the laborers on the west coast of South America, 
although they are dark-faced and many of them have 



212 SOUTH AMERICA 

Indian blood in their veins. What a queer dress they wear ! 
Instead of trousers they have white drawers which are 
sometimes tucked into their high boots and sometimes 
drawn down over them, being edged with lace. They have 
blankets around their waists, the ends of which are drawn 
through between the legs and fastened to their belts. Most 
of them wear slouch hats. Each man carries a whip, and 
all have knives in their belts. These gauchos are the de- 
scendants of the mixed breed of Spaniards and Indians. 
They are the cowboys of the pampas and like only such 
work as can be done upon horseback and in riding over the 
plains watching the cattle and horses. 

As we ride over the pampas we visit one of their houses. 
It is a mud hut only fifteen feet square, and the door is so 
low that we have to stoop to enter. The earth is the floor, 
and those dry bullock skulls scattered about are, the seats. 
A rude table, a box, and a chair comprise the rest of the 
furniture. 

The cooking is done on a fire outside the door. The chief 
food is beef roasted upon a spit over the coals. As the meat 
cooks, the gaucho's wife bastes it with the juice, which she 
catches in a pan as it falls. When done, the meat is cut 
off in large slices and eaten without plates or forks. Each 
one takes a slice in his hand, puts one end of it between his 
teeth, and, pulling out the slice as far as he can, draws his 
knife across it within a sixteenth of an inch of his nose. 
When his first bite is chewed, he takes another in the same 
way, so that he really has no need of a fork. 

A favorite dish is carne concuero (car'na con-kwa/ro), 
which means meat cooked in the skin. The meat is cut 
from the animal with the skin upon it. It is wrapped up 
tightly so that the skin keeps in the juices when roasted 
over the coals. 



THE BREAD LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 213 

1. Between what latitudes lies the republic of Argentina? If the 
country were laid upon North America with Tierra del Fuego at 
Florida, where would the northern boundary be? What South 
American republic has the most railways? 

2. Compare Argentina with the United States in size and climate ; 
with Brazil. Why is it warm in the southern part of our country 
and cold in the southern part of Argentina ? What season have we 
now in the United States ? What season has Argentina ? 

3. Locate Patagonia. W T hy is Patagonia so dry and southern 
Chile so wet? What are the products of the two regions? 

4. What is the chief Atlantic port of Argentina? Why has 
Buenos Aires become larger? 

5. What is the difference between the guanaco and the llama? 
The rhea and the African ostrich ? (See Carpenter's "How the World 
is Clothed," chapter 3-2^ and Carpenter's "Africa," chapter 44.) 
Why is the ostrich wise to hide its head in the sand ? 

6. Compare the pampas with our prairies. 

7. Compare Argentina with the other wool-growing countries of 
the world, (See Table IX.) (See Carpenter's "How the World 
is Clothed," chapter 10.) Describe a sheep farm. Trace a shipload 
of wool from Bahia Blanca to Boston ; from Sidney, Australia, to 
New York. 

8. Name the great cattle countries of the world. (See Table 
VIII.) Show the place of Argentina among them. 

9. Who are the gauchos? How do they live? 

XXVIII. THE BREAD LANDS OF 
SOUTH AMERICA 

WE shall travel to-day through some of the chief food 
lands of the world. Argentina grows almost all kinds 
of crops, and we can describe only a few of them. A 
large part of the country has corn fields almost as good as 
our own, and it has single fields of alfalfa that contain more 
than one thousand acres. Alfalfa is used to fatten beef for 
export, and in that respect largely takes the place that corn 



214 SOUTH AMERICA 

holds in our country. Argentina is one of the chief wheat 
lands of the world, and as we shall see later, it sends wool by 
the shipload to the United States and Europe. It has also 
in the northern province of Tucuman a region much like 
Florida and Georgia in climate. The cotton and sugar 
lands are in the northern part of the republic, and we shall 
visit them next. 

We take cars at Buenos Aires and ride for two days 
through the rich farms along the Parana River. We travel 
through wheat and corn fields and pastures. The weather 
grows warmer as we proceed, and at last we enter a country 
where there are oranges, lemons, and other tropical fruits. 
We are now in Tucuman (too-koo-man') . 

How different from the desert north of Punta Arenas ! 
All nature is green, for the soil is fertile and there is plenty 
of rain. We pass groves of tall palm trees, their green fan- 
like leaves rustling in the wind. We visit sugar plantations 
where gangs of men and women are cutting the cane. They 
chop it off close to the ground and load it on ox carts to be 
hauled to the factory. We follow a cart and watch the cane 
stalks as they are thrown between steel rollers which squeeze 
out the juice, and farther on we see the juice boiled down 
into sugar. 

We are surrounded by mountains. There are streams 
everywhere. Some are almost dry now, for it is winter. 
In summer the rain comes down in great sheets and turns 
the streams to torrents. We can see how they have cut 
deep gorges here and there through the hills. They often 
flood large tracts of land. 

More hills come into view as we leave Tucuman and go 
westward and southward. We are in the foothills of the 
Andes. There are forests of fine woods, and farther south 
we enter a land of great vineyards. 



THE BREAD LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 215 

See how the vines cover the hills. They extend on and 
on for miles. The western part of Argentina is a rich 
grape-raising country. Trainloads of grapes are shipped 
from here to Buenos Aires and other parts of the republic. 
Some go even as far as the United States. When the grapes 
are ripe, men, women, and children walk through the vine- 
yards gathering them in baskets and carrying them to the 
wine presses. 

Look up at the mountains to the west. Those are the 
snow-capped Andes. This town into which we are coming 
is Mendoza (men-do'sa) , the metropolis of the grape-growing 
section, and that snowy peak just beyond is Mount 
Aconcagua. We saw it before in Chile. Mendoza is a 
station on the Transandine railroad. That iron track which 
climbs the mountains is the eastern part of the railway, 
over the western part of which we had such a pleasant 
journey in Chile some weeks ago. 

There is a good railroad from here to Buenos Aires, and 
one can travel in comfortable cars to almost any part of 
the republic. We decide to go back to the wheat lands by 
the way of Cordoba (kor'do-va) and stop there for a few 
hours on the way. 

Have you ever heard of Cordoba? It is a town well 
known in the history of South America. It was for two 
hundred years one of the chief centers of education and cul- 
ture, and it had a university seven years before our Pilgrim 
fathers landed on Plymouth Rock. Cordoba has a large 
university now. It is also a business center and has all 
modern city improvements, including electric street cars and 
lights run by the power from the Rio Primero (pre-ma/rd) 
near by. A stay here will give us some idea of a small city 
of Argentina. 

We take a motor-car at the station and drive to the plaza, 



216 SOUTH AMERICA 

which is in the center of the town. Cordoba is much like 
the cities of Chile in that it is laid out in blocks with its 
streets crossing one another at right angles. The blocks 
surround the plaza, or public square. Almost all the houses 
are of one story. They are painted in the brightest of 
colors, and many have iron bars over their windows, mak- 
ing us think of a jail. 

Back of these bars we see women and girls standing or 
sitting. It seems as though the girls were caged in. This 
is so in almost all towns of Argentina. Young women and 
girls seldom go alone on the streets. They are not allowed 
to associate with young men or boys until they are married, 
and the young man who would stop at a window and chat 
would be told to move on. 

We drive through the wide Avenida General Paz, admir- 
ing the statues at its ends, and then out among the shabby 
huts of the suburbs where the poor people live. 

Here all is dirty and squalid, but the sky is bright blue, 
and the gorgeous sunlight gives an atmosphere like that of 
the Orient. The outskirts of Cordoba remind travelers 
of Cairo ; and the Moorish architecture of the churches 
and of the better class houses is like that of southern 
Spain. 

Now we are again in the city. What queer names for 
streets. Some are taken from the noted days of the history 
of Argentina. Here is one called Twenty-fifth of May 
Street. We turn the corner and go into the street of the 
Eighteenth of July, and wonder if we shall not find farther 
on a street named "Week after Next." 

We stop at the market. It is in a hollow square sur- 
rounded by rose-colored, one-story buildings containing 
meat stalls. The red beef and mutton hang from hooks 
under white awnings. There are no scales. Those women 



THE BREAD LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 217 

with the black shawls around their heads who are buying 
pay for the meat by the chunk. The court is rilled with 
carts which have come in from the farms. On the ground 
sit dark-faced women with vegetables about them, which 
they sell by the pile. 

What is that squealing outside the market? It sounds 
like a pig in the hands of a butcher. They surely cannot 
kill hogs here in the midst of the city. It is only the creak- 
ing of a farm cart which is bringing in wheat. There it 
comes through the door. It has wheels eight feet in height, 
hubs as big around as your waist, and an axle as thick as a 
telegraph pole. 

But let us leave Cordoba and ride on the railroad into the 
wheat lands. We reach them within a few hours. The 
best wheat region of Argentina lies in the Parana basin 
within a hundred miles of both banks of the river, for the 
soil which it has brought down from the uplands is exceed- 
ingly rich. The wheat lands are so large that if they could 
be put into one block they would cover an area five times 
that of New York, or six times that of Ohio. This tract 
in good seasons produces far more wheat than the people 
can use, the wheat exports often competing with our wheat 
in the markets of Europe. Indeed, our farmers might have 
to stop exporting wheat, did not Argentina have many 
droughts when the wheat will not grow, and in wet seasons 
occasional invasions of locusts, or short-horned grasshoppers, 
which eat the crops. 

The locusts are not like any we have in our country. 
They come down in swarms of millions from the warm lands 
of southern Brazil. There are so many of them at times 
that they shut out the sun like a storm cloud. They alight 
on everything green and consume all as they go. They 
eat the leaves of the trees and also the fruit. They are 



2l8 



SOUTH AMERICA 



especially fond of green wheat. A swarm of locusts will 
chew up a wheat field in a night, and when they come in 

vast numbers, as 
they sometimes do 
year after year, the 
farmers are ruined. 
The locusts lay their 
eggs in holes in the 
ground, and when 
these eggs hatch 
there are thousands 
more. The people 
never know when 
they are coming, and 
plant on and on, 
hoping to be able 
to harvest their 
crops. We pity the 
people as we watch 
them at work. 

It is now spring, 
and they are plow- 
ing the fields. We 
ride for hours 
through vast tracts 
of brown soil, upon 
which dark-faced 
men are guiding 
their oxen this way 
and that ; through 
the furrows. Here 




Argentine locusts. " Each lays from fifty 
to one hundred eggs." 



one is sowing the seed, scattering it by hand, and in the 
next field oxen are dragging harrows and brush over the clods 



THE BREAD LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



219 



to cover the grain. A little later we pass through a great 
estate where farm tractors are used. 

Now we are passing farms where the wheat has been sown 
for some time. As far as we can see there is nothing but 
the emerald green of the fresh sprouting grain. A little 
later, as harvest time comes, this vast sea of emerald will 
change to billow's of gold. There will be wheat on all sides, 




Hauling wool to the station. 



and the yellow waves will roll on and on, until at last they 
lose themselves in the blue sky. 

Then there will be reapers and mowers moving over the 
fields, some drawn by horses or oxen and others by tractors, 
cutting the grain. There will be steam threshers puffing 
away as they shell out the wheat, and there will be huge ox 
carts like those we saw in Cordoba, with teams of eight or 
twelve oxen, and now and then a motor-truck, hauling 
the great loads of bags to the train. 

Were we here at that time we might find it very slow 



220 SOUTH AMERICA 

traveling. There is so much wheat that all the freight cars 
of the country are needed to carry it to Rosario (ro-sa're-o), 
the chief wheat port of the Parana River, and to Buenos 
Aires or Bahia Blanca for shipment to Europe. The tracks 
are so crowded with wheat that the passenger trains are 
sometimes kept back to let the freight cars go by. At that 
time there are stacks of bags at the stations awaiting ship- 
ment, many of them being covered with canvas to protect 
the wheat from the rain. 

Why do not the farmers store the wheat as we do ? We 
can easily tell as we ride on through the fields. There are 
no barns anywhere ! Lumber is costly, for most of the 
Wilding materials come from our country or Europe. No 
feed is stored, and even the working horses and oxeri are 
often turned out to graze. The chief farm buildings are 
the little mud huts thatched with straw in which the men 
live. The result is that the grain is sold as soon as it is 
threshed, and the farmer must take what he can get. Re- 
cently, elevators have been constructed at the chief ports, 
and in time they will be found everywhere. 

Most of the grain is shipped to Europe soon after harvest. 
This is in January and February, which is summer here 
south of the equator, although it is midwinter at home. 
There is so much wheat, however, that some is exported 
all the year round. The chief grain exporting ports are 
Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires, and Rosario. We can see 
one way in which it is handled by watching the loading of 
steamers at Rosario. 

Rosario is situated on the south bank of the Parana River 
about three hundred miles by water from Buenos Aires. 
It is about the same size as Kansas City. The river is so 
deep here that ocean steamers can pass through the Rio de 
la Plata and the Parana up to it. The city is built upon a 



THE BREAD LANDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 221 

bluff so high that it is above the masts of the steamers on 
the river below. All along the river, a little back from the 
edge of the bluff, warehouses of gray galvanized iron have 
been constructed. In these the wheat is stored as it is 
brought from the fields. In front of each warehouse there is 



Beef carcasses being frozen for shipment to Europe and the United 

States. 

a long chute or trough, made of wood or iron, extending down 
to the water. These troughs are in sections so that they 
can be shortened or lengthened at will. When connected 
they make a continuous chute, running from the bluff into 
the hold of the steamer. The bags of wheat are carried 
from the warehouses and thrown into the chute. They 



222 SOUTH AMERICA 

bounce up and down as they slide into the steamer, making 
us think of an army of gigantic yellow mice galloping into 
the hold. At some places the railroad tracks run so close 
to the bluff that the wheat bags can be taken from the cars 
directly to the chutes. 

In good years there is grown in all the countries of the 
globe almost four billion bushels of wheat, of which the 
Argentine republic produces about one twenty-fifth. The 
other great wheat countries are the United States, Russia, 
France, India, Canada, Italy, and Australia. Of the con- 
tinents, Europe produces by far the most, North America 
coming next with about one half as much. Most of the 
wheat of South America is grown in Argentina, the remain- 
der coming from Chile and Uruguay. 

A great deal of corn is now being planted, especially in 
the region between the Uruguay and Parana rivers. The 
land is rich and the climate well suited to the crop. In- 
deed, the day may come when Argentina will have its 
corn belt, and its people will raise pigs and export pork as 
they now export beef. 

Another important crop of Argentina is flax, the plant 
from whose fibers linen is made. From flaxseed comes the 
linseed oil used to mix with paint, and the oil cake used for 
stock feed. The four great flax regions are Russia, India, 
Argentina, and central North America. Russia produces 
most of the flax used for its fibers, while that of Argentina 
and our country is raised chiefly for the seeds. One reason 
for this is that in Argentina and the United States labor 
costs a great deal, and much work is needed to separate the 
fibers for linen. Argentina raises more flax seed than any 
other country of the world. Its best flax fields are in Entre 
Rios (en'tra re'os), the province lying between the Uruguay 
and Paraguay rivers. 



BUENOS AIRES 223 

XXIX. BUENOS AIRES 

IT is a night's ride by train from Rosario to Buenos Aires. 
We go to bed in the sleeper as the cars move out of the 
station, and when we awake we are in the capital of 
Argentina. We step into a railroad station almost as large 
as our best stations at home, and walk under a long, glass- 
covered roof to the front door. How many taxicabs there 
are, and how their drivers yell at us as we come down the 
steps ! We choose one and are soon dashing through one 
long street after another, almost skidding as we round 
corner after corner, until we reach our hotel. 

We soon see that Buenos Aires is a large city, and its 
size grows upon us as we ride through it day after day. It 
is the largest city on the South American continent, and 
there are but few in North America surpassing it in size. 
It is now nearly as large as Philadelphia, and is growing 
rapidly. It is the chief city of the Parana basin, and is 
like Chicago in that it is the commercial and exporting 
center of its vast bread lands and pastures. 

Buenos Aires is situated on the Rio de la Plata about 
one hundred miles from the sea, at just the point where 
the great steamers from the United States and Europe 
can most easily land their goods, and from where the wool, 
hides, meats, and other products can be loaded to go across 
the ocean. It is about six thousand miles from New York 
by sea and the ships make the voyage in three or four weeks. 
The trip may be made in less time by going to Valparaiso 
by rail, a distance of 888 miles, and then going north via 
the Panama Canal. 

The port of Buenos Aires is the largest in all South 
America, and its harbor is lined with magnificent docks 
equipped with loading machinery run by electricity. Near 




224 



BUENOS AIRES 225 

by are huge grain elevators and flour mills, one of which 
cost fifteen million dollars. 

It is in Buenos Aires that the most of the business of 
Argentina is done. It is the capital, and it has also the 
chief factories that supply the country with goods. It 
ships most of the wool and other exports, and has one of 
the largest produce markets in the world. 

The richest people of Argentina live in Buenos Aires. 
They have magnificent homes, going only now and then to 
their vast estates in the country. Here also are the busi- 
ness houses of the great merchants, the chief colleges, the 
great daily newspapers, the finest churches, and nearly 
everything which is of importance to the republic, except 
the resources from which its wealth is derived. 

But to what races do the people of this great city belong ? 
As we hear them talk we think them all Spanish. There 
are Spanish signs over the stores, and many speak nothing 
else. Buenos Aires is by far the largest Spanish-speaking 
city of the world ; it is more than three times the size of 
Madrid, the largest city of Spain. Still, the most of its 
people are foreigners. Not more than one fifth of them 
were born in the country. There are more Italians than 
native x\rgen tines in Buenos Aires, and at least one hundred 
thousand of its citizens have come here from Spain. 

Those masons who are building that house over the way 
are Italians. The Italians are the mechanics of the city, 
and we shall find them also peddling onions, fish, and all 
kinds of goods from house to house. They are the news- 
boys and also the bootblacks. They own the grocery stores, 
and there are rich Italian bankers and traders. There 
are many large banks managed by the English, and some 
of the biggest stores are owned by the Germans. There 
are comparatively few people who have come from the 



226 SOUTH AMERICA 

United States, although we have some large importing 
houses and several banks. 

But let us go farther into the business section. Here we 
are in the Plaza de Mayo (pla'za da ma/yo). What a 
beautiful park, and how large are the houses about it! 
That great structure on one side of the square is the ca- 
thedral. There is a crowd of women in black gowns, with 
shawls over their heads, going to mass. The cathedral 
covers more than an acre of ground and will hold, it is said, 
nine thousand people. It is the chief church of the city, 
for Argentina is a Roman Catholic country, and Buenos 
Aires is said to be the largest Catholic city of the world. 
Catholicism is the religion of the state, and it is here that 
the president attends mass. 

That building just above the cathedral contains the courts 
of the city, and on the opposite side is the rose-colored 
government house, where the president of Argentina has 
his offices and where most of the government business is 
done. Our president lives in the White House. The name 
of this president's palace is the Casa Rosada, which means 
the Red House. Argentina has a congress just as we have, 
and its people are supposed to choose their own officers 
much as we do. We visit the national capitol where con- 
gress meets. It is one of the fine buildings of the world and 
faces a beautiful park. 

But let us go out to Barraccas. "Barraccas" means 
warehouses, and this is the name of that part of the city 
where most of the wool, wheat, and meat are prepared for 
shipment abroad. We stand on the corner and wait for 
the car. We hear a horn blown in the distance. The 
sound of it grows louder and louder, and we soon see that 
one end of the horn is in the mouth of the motorman, and 
that he gives a warning blast at every street corner. 



BUENOS AIRES 



227 



As the car stops we climb in. We are carried through 
narrow streets for more than two miles, when we reach an 
enormous brick structure on the banks of the Riachuelo 
(re-a-chwa/lo) River, which flows into the Rio de la Plata 
here. The building is that of the Mercado Central dos 




The Casa Rosada, or "'Red House," where the president of Argen- 
tina lives. 



Frutos, the largest wholesale produce market under one roof 
in the world. It covers thirty acres, and in it millions of 
pounds of wool are handled each year. It is so built that the 
cars can come into the market and the wool and wheat can be 
unloaded right upon the floors. Shiploads of wool sail up 
to its door, cars come in on the railways, and trucks, carts, 
and wagons loaded with wool and grain are driven in from 
all parts of the country. We go through one immense room 
after another. Some are filled with wool, and in others 
there are so many bags of wheat and corn that we have not 
time to count them. 



228 SOUTH AMERICA 

From the Mercado Central dos Frutos we visit the great 
frigerificos where thousands of cattle are killed daily and 
their carcasses chilled or frozen for shipment to Europe and 
the United States. We have to wear overcoats when we 
enter the freezing rooms. They are intensely cold, and 
the walls and ceiling are covered with frost, produced by 
liquid ammonia expanding in pipes throughout the room. 
The dressed beef is beautiful in its red and white colors, 
and when we tap it we find it as hard as stone. It will re- 
main in this condition until it is ready for sale in the market 
houses of our country and Europe. This keeps the meat 
fresh, and when sold it looks and tastes like fresh beef. 

On our way back to the hotel we call at one of the big 
city markets and see that the food which the Argentines eat 
is quite as good as our own. They have all sorts of meats, 
fish, and vegetables. There are huge pears from near 
Buenos Aires, and oranges and pineapples which have 
come on the steamer from Paraguay. There are grapes 
from the foothills of the Andes, and peaches by the bushel 
from the islands of the Parana River. Peach trees grow 
so rapidly in this part of the world that they are often 
planted for fuel. In some places peaches are so plentiful 
that they are thrown to the pigs. 

We meet many chicken peddlers on leaving the market. 
They are starting out with live chickens which they will 
sell from house to house throughout the city. The chickens 
are in wicker crates hung over the back of a horse. We see 
other peddlers on horseback or on foot. Now and then we 
pass a man driving a flock of turkeys before him. You can 
point out the one you want and he will catch it and sell 
it to you. 

Have you ever eaten young armadillo? It tastes like 
spring chicken, and these people are so fond of it that they 



BUENOS AIRES 



229 



eat thousands of armadillos each month. The armadillo 
is a little four-legged animal with a shell like a turtle and a 
head like a pig. It burrows into the earth and seldom goes 
out of its hole except at night. When attacked it rolls itself 
into a ball and is protected by the horny plates of its shell. 
It eats fruit and roots and small insects. Its flesh is white 
and quite tender ; we taste it at one of the restaurants and 
find it delicious. 




Armadillo. 



But it is now .five o'clock and we must go for a walk on 
the Calle Florida. This is the most fashionable shopping 
section, and its scenes at this time of the day are as gay as 
those of any part of the world. The street is only about 
thirty-five feet wide and about a mile long, but its fine shops 
make one think of a museum of rich goods and a treasure 
vault of costly jewels. The roadway is paved with cement, 
and the sidewalks are tiled like the floor of a bathroom. The 
street is so narrow that the police shut out all wheeled 



230 SOUTH AMERICA 

traffic from five until eight in the afternoon, at which time 
most of the shopping is done. During these hours there 
are no carriages or automobiles to be seen, and a boy on a 
motorcycle would surely be arrested. The people we 
meet are well dressed, and we hear French, German, Eng- 
lish, Italian, and Spanish spoken by different parties as we 
pass along. 

We see many fine turnouts on Thursday afternoon, when 
we take a drive by the magnificent residences along the 
Avenue Alvear to Palermo Park. This park is perhaps the 
finest in all South America. It covers many acres, and in 
it are long avenues of magnificent palms, forest trees of all 
kinds, running streams and winding lakes. During the 
afternoons of Sunday and Thursday it is rilled with people. 
There are hundreds of automobiles moving along and thou- 
sands of foot passengers walking under the palms. There 
are gayly dressed children playing upon the grass, and boys 
rowing about in boats on the lakes. 

We see the children enjoying themselves in other ways 
during a short trip we make from Buenos Aires to Mar del 
Plata, the favorite seaside resort. Here they dig in the sand 
and go swimming in the ocean just as we do at home. 

1. What important grains are raised in Argentina? Compare 
its wheat farms with those of the United States. 

2. What three countries produce more wheat than Argentina? 
(See Table X.) What countries produce most per acre? What 
great pest occasionally afflicts the Argentine farmers? Of what 
plague in Egypt described in the Bible does it remind you? 

3. Name the chief grain ports. 

4. Locate Tucuman. Describe some of its products. 

5. Describe Cordoba and Rosario. For what is Mendoza noted? 

6. Where are the best flax fields? For what is the product used? 
What other very important things do we get from the flax plant? 
(See Carpenter's "How the World is Clothed," pages 50-55.) 



BUENOS AIRES 



231 



7. Make a tour of Buenos Aires and describe it. Compare it 
with Chicago. How far is it from New York via Valparaiso? 
Direct? 

8. Visit a large meat-packing establishment and tell what you see. 
Where are our chief meat-packing centers? Trace a cargo of beef 
from Buenos Aires to Liverpool ; to New York. How far does each 
shipment travel ? 

9. What do we find in the wool market? How does Argentina 
rank among the sheep-raising countries? Name its chief com- 
petitors. Name a strange meat of Argentina. 




We leave Buenos Aires on a river steamer for Montevideo. These 

boats are much like those which ply between New York and 

Boston. One leaves each city every night. 



232 



SOUTH AMERICA 



XXX. URUGUAY — MONTEVIDEO 



WE shall begin our journeys in a new country this 
morning. We leave Buenos Aires on a river 
steamer for Montevideo and seven hours later are casting 
anchor in a fine harbor on the Rio de la Plata only 

ninety miles away. 
The day is just 
dawning, and the 
lights on the shore 
shine out through 
the mist, marking 
the shape of the city 
and harbor. 

The Bay of Monte- 
video is like a horse- 
shoe; it is six miles 
in length and so 
large that hundreds 
of vessels could be 
anchored in it at 
one time. Of late years, however, the earth washings 
brought down from the highlands, through the Rio de 
la Plata, have so filled the bay that extensive harbor 
improvements have been made to allow large vessels to 
come near the shore. 

But let us take a bird's-eye view of Uruguay before we 
begin to explore it. It is the smallest of the South American 
republics, and there are single states in Argentina which 
surpass it in size. Uruguay could easily be lost in Brazil, 
for it is only about as large as Missouri. 

We can see something of its shape on the map, but if we 
could fly over it in an airplane, or perhaps on the winged 




ontevideo 



URUGUAY — MONTEVIDEO 



233 



horse Pegasus, we should see that with the exception of a 
few low mountain ranges it is a waving sheet of billowy 
green, with so many streams of silvery water flowing through 
it that they form a network like the veins of a leaf. We 
should see that it has rich soil and that cattle and sheep are 
scattered over it in quite as large flocks as those of Argen- 




Children playing in the sand at Mar del Plata, the favorite 
seaside resort. 



tina. The country is level or rolling and has hardly any 
waste land. 

If we flew slowly we might observe that the houses of the 
farmers are like the mud huts of the Argentine pampas and 
that the aspects of nature are about the same. 

The climate of Uruguay is delightful. The country is 
as near the equator as Florida, but the weather is not so 
hot in summer nor so cold in winter. 




234 



URUGUAY — MONTEVIDEO 235 

In such a flight we should notice the long coast line of 
the country, the great steamboats sailing up the Uruguay 
River, and the smaller boats on other streams in the interior. 
We should see but few large towns, and should notice that 
all the railroad trains, steamboats, and carts are moving to 
and from the capital city of Montevideo, which we are about 
to explore. 

We take a boat and ride to the wharves, observing the 
Cerro or hill at the left from which the city was named. 
Montevideo means "I see the mountain." The mountain 
in this case is not higher than the Washington monument, 
but the land is so flat all about that the hill can be seen far 
out at sea. There is a white tower upon it, and at night the 
revolving light in it is visible twenty-rive miles from land. 

But here we are at the wharves. We step out and take 
a look at the harbor, which has been improved at a cost of 
tens of millions of dollars. There are many ships from 
Europe and the United States at anchor within it, and we 
learn that it is a port of call for all the steamship lines that 
come to this part of South America. There are also steamers 
that transport goods on the Rio de la Plata system and boats 
that leave every night for Buenos Aires. 

We ask as to the trade and are told that the chief exports 
are wool, hides, meat, beef extracts, and live stock, and that 
the imports are cotton and woolen goods, iron and steel, 
coal and machinery. 

Leaving the port we wend our way through the city. 
The buildings are large, the streets wide, and there are many 
parks rilled with tropical plants and beautiful flowers. 
There are automobiles, motorcycles, and many electric 
car lines. 

How clean the streets are ! They are kept so by the long 
tongue of rock upon which Montevideo is built. The 



236 SOUTH AMERICA 

rock extends from the Cerro or hill out into the bay. It 
slopes on all sides so that the streets run up hill and down 
and every rain washes them clean. Montevideo is a very 
healthful city ; fewer people die in it, in proportion to its 
size, than in any other city of the world. 

We step aside to get out of the way of the motor-trucks 
and carts. The carts are each drawn by two or three mules 
harnessed abreast. Each has a bed made of poles with 
sides of poles curved upward and tied together with thongs. 
The wheels are enormous and make a great din as they rattle 
over the cobblestone streets. There are other carts coming 
up this side street. Is it not strange that they do not use 
wagons? No, not when you learn that all vehicles in 
Montevideo are taxed by the number of wheels, and that 
a four-wheeled wagon would have to pay twice as much as 
a cart. 

Montevideo has a good street-car system and we can go 
anywhere upon it. We ride in the cars by two-story and 
three-story houses, new passing great plazas or squares filled 
with trees. We go out into the country through the wide 
boulevard of General Artigas, which is lined with beautiful 
gardens from one end to the other, and visit Urbano Park 
and the Rambla de los Pocetas (po-sa/tas) . The latter is 
the chief seaside resort of Uruguay, and people come here 
from Argentina and Paraguay to enjoy the fine bathing. 
There are large hotels right on the sea, and near them are 
many boxes on wheels in which the people put on their bath- 
ing clothes. The bathhouses are then drawn by mules 
to the edge of the water. We each select one of these bath- 
houses and are soon far out in the surf enjoying the salty 
billows as they roll up on the shore. 

Coming back to our hotel, we take automobiles and ex- 
plore the city. It is about as large as New Orleans and it 



URUGUAY — MONTEVIDEO 



237 



has all modern city improvements. The streets are wide, 
straight, and well paved, the principal street running along 
the top of a ridge and ending in the Plaza de la Indepen- 
dencia. We visit the Solis Theater, one of the largest in 
South America, and the fine new national capitol where 
congress meets. We are shown through the cathedral and 




The bathhouses are drawn to and from the beach by mules, 
author stands at the right. 



The 



then go to the public library and some of the educational 
institutions. 

Montevideo has a great university. It has asylums and 
hospitals, medical schools and laboratories, and it is one of 
the most advanced of all cities as to health matters. 
There are common schools almost everywhere and education 
is compulsory. The city has free lunches for school children, 
and the school girls are taught how to cook and sew while 




238 



URUGUAY — MONTEVIDEO 239 

the boys learn manual training. In some of the coun- 
try schools the children study out loud, and in our motor 
rides we may hear the din of a school before we come 
to it. 

Montevideo has many rich people who have large estates 
in the country. They live upon their farms in summer 
and spend their winters at the capital city. During our 
stay we visit some of these well-to-do families. Their 
houses are grand, the floors are of marble, and the ceilings 
are often upheld by marble columns imported from Italy. 
We find the rooms cold. The people believe artificial 
heat is unhealthful and so they have no stoves, furnaces, or 
steam-heating plants. The result is that in the winter the 
women often receive callers in their furs with their feet on 
hot-water bottles, and the men sometimes wear their over- 
coats at dinner. 

From Montevideo we take some trips out through the 
country. We cross to the boundary of Brazil by railway, 
and on the way back visit other places by motor-car. We 
travel some time on the Uruguay River, visiting the ports 
of S alto (sal' to) and Paysandu (pi-san-doo') , and stopping 
at Fray Bentos (in ben'tos), where hundreds of thousands 
of cattle are yearly killed for meat extract. The lean 
meat is stewed in warm water, being skimmed again and 
again of the fat. After a long time the stew thickens into 
a liquid much like thin molasses. It is then put into tin 
boxes and sent to Europe, where it is repacked in porcelain 
jars and shipped all over the world. Many of us have 
tasted beef tea made from this Uruguay extract. It is 
found in our drug stores and is often prescribed for sick 
people. 

Not far from Fray Bentos are the factories in which 
jerked beef is made. Such meat is much liked by the South 



240 SOUTH AMERICA 

American people. It is taken by the shipload from Uruguay 
to Brazil and the West Indies. The animals are killed and 
the meat stripped from their bodies and dried in the sun 
in such a way that it will not spoil, however long it is kept. 
Coming back to Montevideo, we visit the huge packing 
establishments where cattle and sheep are killed and dressed 
for shipment to Europe. The scenes are much like those 
we saw in similar places in Argentina. The cattle 
are brought in on the cars or are driven on foot to Toblado, 
an open-air market held in the fields several miles from 
Montevideo. Here they are driven about by the gauchos 
or cowboys, while the buyers select such herds as they want 
and shout how much they will pay. Thousands of animals 
are sold in one day, and at the time of our visit ten thousand 
long-horned cattle are bought by the packers. When the 
sale is over the animals are weighed and driven to the fri- 
gerificos, where they are speedily killed. Some of the beef 
is chilled and shipped to New York, but most of the product 
goes to Europe, and a great deal to England. 

i. Bound Uruguay. What did you see in traveling by airplane 
over the country? 

2. What does "Montevideo" mean? 

3. Describe the city. Tell why it has become great. How far is 
it from New York ? At 1 5 miles per hour how long is the voyage ? 

4. Mention the chief products of Uruguay. What is beef extract ? 

5. What are the chief exports of Uruguay? The chief imports? 

6. If a ship went from Galveston to Montevideo and came back 
to Boston, what would be the probable cargoes of each voyage? 

7. Compare Uruguay in size with other South American coun- 
tries ; with your own state. 

8. Trace a cargo of chilled beef from Montevideo to London; 
to New York ; to Liverpool ; by two routes to San Francisco, giv- 
ing the length of each route. 



UP THE RIO DE LA PLATA SYSTEM . 241 

XXXI. UP THE RIO DE LA PLATA SYSTEM 

WE are again upon shipboard this morning. We have 
left Montevideo and are steaming through the 
Rio de la Plata, upon whose two great tributaries, the 
Parana and the Paraguay, we shall go into the heart of 
the South American continent. 

What a big stream it is ! At Montevideo we could hardly 
see the opposite shore. It is wide all the way to Buenos 
Aires and even to the junction of the Uruguay and Parana 
rivers, by which it is formed. The Rio de la Plata, in fact, 
is more like a muddy fresh-water bay or arm of the sea than 
a river. It is about two hundred miles long, and where it 
unites with the ocean it is more than one hundred miles 
wide. 

The water of the river looks like pea soup. We hesitate 
to get into our bath, and when we let off the water a thick 
coat of mud remains in the tub, so much that our feet leave 
marks as deep as those which frightened Robinson Crusoe 
on the shore of his desert island. The Rio de la Plata sys- 
tem brings down a vast amount of earth washings from the 
mountains. It contains so much silt that if it could be put 
upon wagons, twenty thousand horses all pulling at once could 
not haul away the load of one hour. So much mud drops 
to the bottom that the river is fast filling up. It is already 
difficult for the big ocean steamers to reach Buenos Aires, and 
the people are now talking of a system of jetties like that 
of the Mississippi to deepen the channel. 

The Rio de la Plata system drains a basin about half as 
large as the whole United States. If we could view the 
basin from above we should see that it is of the shape of a 
horseshoe, with the opening toward the Atlantic. The 
highlands of Brazil and the Andes form the rim on the west, 



242 SOUTH AMERICA 

north, and east, while a low divide completes it on the south. 
Within this shoe He the best lands of Argentina, the whole 
of Uruguay and Paraguay, and large portions of Brazil 
and Boh via. 

In climate this basin is similar to that of the Mississippi 
basin reversed. The northern and upper part of the Mis- 
sissippi basin is cold ; the northern and upper part of the 
Rio de la Plata basin is warm. Can you tell why? 

The greatest tributaries of the Rio de la Plata come from 
the hot lands of Brazil and Bolivia where palms and rubber 
trees grow, and its mouth lies in the cooler countries of 
wheat fields and pastures where we have been traveling 
lately. Almost everywhere the climate is healthful. The 
northern parts have weather much like that of Louisiana 
or Florida, and the south has about the same climate as that 
of our Middle States. Our ship stops at Buenos Aires for 
passengers and freight, and we then start on our way to the 
great Parana, the main downspout of the system. 

We soon pass the mouth of the Uruguay River, and just 
before entering the Parana sail about the islands of Martin 
Gracia (gra-se'a). We can see with our glasses the fort 
upon its shore. There are boys in soldier uniforms march- 
ing about. They belong to the Argentine Naval School 
which has been established there ; the men drilling are sol- 
diers used to defend the fortifications. 

Martin Gracia is called the " Gibraltar of Argentina," 
for it guards the chief entrance to the Parana River. It 
is famous in history. It was here that the Spanish explorers 
who first visited Uruguay stopped for a time. During their 
stay their pilot, Martin Gracia, died and they gave the island 
his name as a monument. As we sail by it we remember 
that we, too, are on an exploring expedition. We are enter- 
ing waters which were discovered by the white man who, 



UP THE RIO DE LA PLATA SYSTEM 243 

with his father John, was the first to set foot upon the soil 
of the North American continent. This was Sebastian 
Cabot, who, only thirty-four years after Columbus landed 
in America, came here and entered the Parana River. He 
traveled up that part of the Parana through which we 
shall go, and from it went into the Paraguay River over the 
very same way we shall sail. 

I venture, however, that Sebastian Cabot, if he could 
be with us to-day, would think our boat, although only a 
river steamer, more wonderful than anything he saw on his 
tour. His ship was not one tenth as large. It was a small 
sailing vessel and took months to go up the river. He 
would not understand how we could move without sails. 
Steam as a motive power was not then discovered, and he 
would not know how we could make the great paddle wheels 
move us onward so fast that the voyage can be made in six 
days. 

Cabot's ship was probably lighted with tallow. How he 
would wonder at our electric globes and the other curious 
things which have been invented since then. 

He would be surprised when he sat down to meals and 
might think the food rather good for explorers. Here, for 
instance, is our bill of fare for one dinner : ox- tail soup, 
Bologna sausage with potato salad, boiled beef, fish caught 
in the Parana River, curried chicken and rice, beefsteak 
and potatoes, cheese, guava jelly, English walnuts, almonds 
and raisins, oranges, and coffee. 

Passing Martin Gracia, we sail for several hundred miles 
through the delta of the Parana. For a day's ride north 
of its mouth the river is about twenty miles wide. It has 
many channels and is dotted with islands. Some are cov- 
ered with forests of peach trees, and others are cultivated 
by the Italians, who raise vegetables for Buenos Aires. 



244 SOUTH AMERICA 

All the islands are low and many have curious houses 
upon them. We are passing them now. They look like 
sheds. They are raised upon piles, the first floor being 
reached by long ladders. This is in order that the people 
may keep out of the way of the floods, for the winds and 
the tides sometimes roll great waves in from the ocean. 

After traveling up the stream for a day we reach Rosario, 
and steam on by ocean ships such as we saw from the bluff 
after our tour of the wheat fields. They are still loading 
wheat, and thousands of yellow bags are bobbing up and 
down as they glide over the chutes. There are flour mills 
and grain elevators at Santa Fe and other towns farther up, 
and much of the shipping of the Parana River is devoted 
to carrying grain. 

As we go on we are more and more delighted. The 
Parana is picturesque although the lowest parts of it have 
no grand scenery. It is wider than the Mississippi and seems 
at times like a great inland sea, the shores being so far apart 
that we cannot always see both banks at once. 

This is largely due to the islands, of which the Parana 
has so many that they have never been counted. In our 
journey we are always sailing in and out among them, now 
coming close to the high bluffs of the mainland and now 
passing through narrow channels, so near the shore that we 
can almost catch hold of the willows and feathery grasses, 
which hang over and mirror themselves in the water. 

But look, some of the grassy islands are moving ! That 
great mass of green over there is going past our steamer on 
its way down the river. It is moving almost as fast as our 
engine is pushing us up the stream. See; the waves from 
the ship are making the island move up and down. It is 
a sheet of billowy green rising and falling with every wave. 
That is a floating island ! There are many such in the 



UP THE RIO DE LA PLATA SYSTEM 245 

Parana River. They are masses of weeds, flowers, and 
turf which the floods have torn from their foundations in 
the highlands and are carrying down to the sea. Some are 
so firm that they will support a man ; and during the floods 
peccaries, jaguars, and snakes are often carried upon the 
islands out to the ocean. 

Now we have left the middle of the stream and are pass- 
ing close to the great bluffs of the mainland. We are trying 
to avoid that sand bar which is being built up by the river. 
In places the banks are torn down, and all about us are 
examples of the great part the waters have in shaping the 
earth. 

The rivers are the masons of the gods, and as we look 
about us we realize what a master workman this mighty 
Parana is, and how it has aided in building up the Rio de 
la Plata basin. The river sweeping past us faster than a 
man can walk is loaded with mud. It has been bringing 
down mud for ages, and most of these islands have been 
built up by the sediment it has dropped. 

The streams of the Andes are now gathering dirt for this 
river, and its waters are carrying it down to the lowlands. 
That island of a hundred acres of green which is now float- 
ing by is made of earth washings brought down from the 
highlands. Some of its particles were torn from the roots 
of the rubber trees in Brazil, some have come from coffee 
plantations a thousand miles farther north, and some were 
loosened, perhaps, by the Indians we saw mining gold in 
the wilds of the Bolivian Andes. That bluff at our right 
is one hundred feet high. See how its strata or layers of 
earth are piled up one on top of another like those of a jelly 
cake. Those layers have been deposited there during the 
ages by running water and as we steam on we can see the 
farms of the future rising slowly under our eyes. 



246 



SOUTH AMERICA 





,^«^^^ps 


PBP^PT" 










■: 


1 


1 . ■ ■ 



Palm Grove near Corrientes. 



Notice that sand bar. Next month it will be an island. 
Next year it will be covered with grass, and trees will 
sprout up. 

The land and sky seem to change every hour. The 
sunsets are gorgeous, painting the clouds with all the hues 
of the rainbow and making a golden canopy over the 
dark-blue Parana. We get up before day to see the sun 
rise. As it comes up its rays strike the dewdrops upon the 
feathery grasses of the islands and myriads of diamonds 
flash from the emerald fields. At night both heavens and 
earth are clad in the glorious moonlight of the semi-tropics. 

As we travel on toward the equator we see many more 
trees. The islands are covered with them, the grasses are 
more luxuriant, and here and there are bunches of bamboo. 



THE GRAN CHACO 247 

Now and then there is a palm tree shading a house on the 
mainland, and oranges and lemons are brought to the steamer 
at some of the ports. We stop at many small towns of 
one-story buildings with thatched huts about them. The 
houses are roofed with red tiles and there is always a church 
spire rising high over the town. 

After three days we reach the city of Corrientes (kor-re- 
en'tes). It is quite a large place for this part of the world 
and is a port from where are exported sugar, tobacco, and 
cotton as well as sheep, cattle, and horses. Corrientes 
looks very imposing in its position on the high east bank of 
the Parana. It is close to the junction of the Alto-Parana 
and the Paraguay rivers, and at its landing we see steamers 
starting up the Alto-Parana, upon which they can sail 
farther on to the northeast for hundreds of miles. Our 
own ship, however, is on its way to Asuncion (a-soon-syon') 
in Paraguay, and as that is the country we are next to ex- 
plore we shall leave the Parana and steam up the Para- 
guay. 

>o;*ko~- — 

XXXII. THE GRAN CHACO 

DURING our ride on the steamer we have heard much 
of the Gran Chaco (gran cha'ko). This is the name 
given to a large territory west of the Parana and Paraguay 
rivers, some of which belongs to Argentina, some to 
Paraguay, and some to Bolivia. It extends for more than 
five hundred miles along the western banks of the rivers, 
running back almost to the foothills of the Andes. It is 
four or five times as large as New England, but its bound- 
aries are not well defined and the greater part is still un- 
explored. 



248 SOUTH AMERICA 

Most of the Gran Chaco is a vast plain less than a 
thousand feet above the sea. It has many great swamps 
and is crossed by the Pilcomayo and Bermejo (ber-ma/ho) 
rivers, which rise in Bolivia and flow into the Paraguay. 
Both streams are crooked, shallow, and obstructed by sand 
bars, but there are small boats on the Pilcomayo, and little 
steamers which will take us several hundred miles up' the 
Bermejo. The country is well watered ; it has great forests 
and millions of acres of highlands covered with grass. In 
the Argentine Chaco at the south they are making farms 
to raise cotton, sugar cane, and corn. Already many large 
estates have been formed. Farther north are extensive 
pasture lands, and the country will some day support a 
great many people. 

The Parana basin contains some of the best wood lands 
of South America, and Argentina alone has forests which 
cover an area almost as large as Texas. Most of these are 
in the Chaco, and there are other large forests in that part 
of the territory belonging to Paraguay and Bolivia. 

In these regions the trees are of many varieties. There 
are soft woods that will float, and hard woods so heavy they 
will sink like a stone. Among the soft woods is a red cedar 
used for cigar boxes, and woods excellent for pulp and paper. 
One of the most important of the hard woods is the algaroba 
(al-ga-ro'ba) , which looks like black walnut. It is used' 
for paving blocks, and many streets in Buenos Aires are paved 
with it. Another hard wood is the lapacho, which has a 
beautiful grain and takes a fine polish. It is as strong as 
hickory and can be used as spokes for the wheels of wagons 
and automobiles. 

The most important wood, however, is the quebracho 
(ka-brach'o) , which not only is good for railroad ties and 
telegraph poles, but also contains so much tannin that 



THE GRAN CHACO 249 

it is extracted for shipment to all parts of the world to be 
used in the manufacture of leather. A great part of the 
leather used in the United States is tanned with quebracho. 
In making the extract the wood is ground to sawdust and 
boiled. The extract is exported in cakes, which are after- 
wards reduced to a liquid. The word "quebracho" means 
ax-breaker. The tree is so hard that it will turn the edge of 
an ax, and when used for railroad ties, holes have to be bored 
for the spikes, for they cannot be driven into the wood. 

As we think of the forests it seems strange that they do 
not supply lumber to all parts of the Parana basin. It 
would surely be cheaper to get out this wood for Argentina 
and Uruguay than from our forests in Oregon and New 
England. Yes, it seems so at first, but not after we have 
studied the matter. Much of the Chaco wood is so heavy 
that it will not float. The logs must be loaded upon carts 
and dragged through the forests or else taken by railroad 
to the Paraguay River before they can be shipped down to 
Buenos Aires. In our country we have the snow to help 
us get the logs to the rivers, and our lumber floats. Here 
there is no snow. It costs a great deal to get the logs out 
of the forests, and the freight rates on the steamers are so 
high, that it is much cheaper for the people near the coast 
of South America to bring their lumber from North America, 
five thousand miles farther away, than to buy it here nearer 
home. 

The Gran Chaco is for the most part as wild as it was 
when Sebastian Cabot sailed up the Parana. Its chief 
inhabitants are Indians, some of whom go naked all the 
year round. The Tobas, for instance, wear almost nothing 
except when they cross the Paraguay River to trade. They 
are among the tallest of the red men, some being over six 
feet in height. Their skin is so thick they can walk on 



250 



SOUTH AMERICA 



thorny ground without sandals. They tattoo themselves 
with blue and red lines and dye their hair yellow. The Toba 
braves are good hunters and fishers, but the squaws do 
most of the work, planting the crops, cooking the meals, 
and weaving the blankets. 




Many of the Indians are nomads, wandering from place to place. 
They need few clothes and no permanent houses. 



Another tribe of the Chaco are the Lenguas,who are ex- 
perts in taming wild animals and birds. Farther north are 
Indians who were noted as oarsmen when the Spanish first 
came. They were terrible warriors and had their oars tipped 
with spearheads so that they could use them as weapons. 

Many of the South American Indians are nomads, wander- 
ing about from place to place. Others have villages of huts 



THE GRAN CHACO 251 

so built together that one roof of straw thatch covers several 
houses. The people sleep on skins on the bare ground. 
The women are quite cleanly, washing their pots and pans 
at the close of each meal. They are good cooks, although 
they have but few cooking utensils. Forks are unknown, 
every one carries his own knife, and shells are used for spoons. 
The chief weapons of the Indians are bows and arrows, and 
with them they can bring down the most savage beasts of 
the forest. 




Alligator. 

The Chaco is a great hunting country. There are alli- 
gators in all the streams, and in traveling near the water at 
night we have to move carefully lest we step on them. 

As we camp overnight in the forest we are now and then 
aroused by the crack of a branch, and see the fierce eyes of 
a brute flashing out of the darkness. It is a jaguar after 
our. dogs. These animals hate dogs and it is dangerous to 
travel with them through the forest. It seldom attacks 
men, and if we meet one in the underbrush a yell will usually 
drive it away. 



252 



SOUTH AMERICA 



Another curious animal of the Chaco is the aguara guazu, 
a species of wolf dog about a yard long. It has sharp ears, 
a pointed muzzle, and yellow fur with a bushy tail like that 
of a fox. It has a hoarse bark which can be heard a long 
way. This dog lives in the swamps and goes out hunting 
at night. It attacks sheep and deer, and will fight for its 
life with a jaguar. 









f'ls^'V*' 




gLWpW^ 3 ^ 






.' ..' iff* 



The jaguar is the largest of the cat family in America, and. almost 
equals the tiger in strength and ferocity. 



But what is that shrill, whistling cry which we hear night 
after night in the forest? That is a tapir, an animal about 
the size of a yearling calf with a head like a pig, and a snout 
like an elephant's trunk but much shorter. It is inoffensive 
if let alone, but it will bite and kick our dogs if they, go 
near it. The skin of the tapir is so thick that it is almost 
impossible to kill it unless it is shot in the forehead or be- 
hind the shoulder. 



THE GRAN CHACO 



253 



Even more dangerous are the peccaries, which are found 
in great numbers in parts of the Chaco. They are little 
wild pigs with sharp teeth, and go about in herds of eight 
Or ten and sometimes fifty or more. They are ferocious 
and often attack travelers who come near them on foot. 
If we should meet them it will be best for us to climb trees 
and shoot at them from there. Peccaries live on roots and 




Tapir. 



fallen fruits. They eat the wild oranges and nuts of the 
woods. At night they sometimes sneak into the Para- 
guayan villages for the oranges that grow in the gardens. 
The Chaco has parrots, toucans, and other gorgeous birds 
of the tropics. It has one bird whose feathers are said to 
shine like flames of fire and another which has dancing per- 
formances, when a dozen or more will rush into an open place 



254 SOUTH AMERICA 

and dance about, screaming and raising their long beaks as 
they do so. 

The streams of the Chaco are full of odd fish, some of 
which live in the mud, and one of which will attack and 
bite men. The latter grows to a length of a foot and a half. 
It has teeth as sharp as a razor, and its jaws are so strong 
that it can drive them through one's flesh to the bone. 

i. Describe the Rio de la Plata basin. Compare it with the 
Mississippi valley. 

2. Name the discoverer of the river. Compare his boat with one 
of the great steamers of to-day. What do you know about, him? 
Where is Gibraltar ? What strait does it guard ? Tell the story 
of the first steamboat ; the first electric lights. 

3. What is the length of the Parana, River? How does it com- 
pare with the Amazon? The Orinoco? The Mississippi-Missouri? 

4. Show how rivers build up the lowlands. How are the floating 
islands formed? 

5. Describe the Gran Chaco. To what three countries does it 
belong ? 

6. What important products come from its forests? Trace a 
shipment of quebracho from Corrientes to the tanneries of Newark, 
New Jersey. 

7. Why does Argentina, which has vast forests, import lumber 
from Oregon and New England ? 

8. Make a hunting trip through the Chaco and describe the 
Indians you might see. Compare these Indians with those of Peru, 
Bolivia, and Chile. 

9. What is a tapir? A peccary? A jaguar? 



PARAGUAY 



255 



XXXIII. PARAGUAY 



WE are on the Paraguay River this morning. We 
have left Corrientes and are steaming northward 
through a country of forests. The water is not so muddy 
as that of the Parana, on which we have been traveling, 
and the stream is not nearly so wide. It is, however, a 
mighty river as deep as the Mississippi and about eighteen 
hundred miles long. It is navigable for steamers for more 
than a thousand 
miles above Corrien- 
tes, and small ves- 
sels can go upon it 
far into Brazil. 

We get our first 
sight of the republic 
of Paraguay soon 
after leaving Corri- 
entes. That land 
along the east bank 
is a part of it, and 
those villages with 
the orange trees 
about them are the 
homes of Paraguay people. 

As we sail onward the country grows considerably wilder. 
Our vessel moves this way and that in following the 
channel, and we are often close to the great trees on the 
shore. The forests of this region abound in timber 
which is excellent and of great durability. We hear 
parrots screaming at us from the branches, and now 
and then with the glass catch sight of a monkey grinning 
out through the leaves. There are many birds of beauti- 




256 SOUTH AMERICA 

ful plumage, and flocks of wild ducks rise from the lagoons 
which we pass every few miles. We get our guns and take 
a shot at the birds. We shoot also at the alligators on the 
shore and at those which scud through the water or dive 
down as we pass. 

The west bank of the Paraguay River is especially wild. 
It belongs to the Gran Chaco, and we could not travel a 
mile inland without meeting jaguars and monkeys, and 
we might even see boa constrictors as large as those of the 
Amazon basin. We stop occasionally at one of the towns 
on the east bank and finally come to anchor at the wharves 
of Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. 

Paraguay, like Bolivia, is a country without a seacoast. 
It lies about as far inland from the Atlantic Ocean as our 
state of Michigan, but by the winding way up the rivers we 
have journeyed as far as from New York to Omaha. We 
are now about midway on the west border of Paraguay 
proper. The country is composed of two divisions, Para- 
guay proper and the Chaco. We have already learned 
something of the Chaco. It is the "Wild West" of Para- 
guay. It is but little developed and inhabited chiefly by 
savage Indians and wild beasts. It is the vast territory 
lying west of the Paraguay River and north of the Pilcomayo 
River, being bounded on the north by Bolivia. The Chaco 
has large forests, many swamps, and some cultivable 
lands. Almost all of it is still in a state of nature, having 
been but little explored. 

Paraguay proper is the settled part of the republic. It 
has all the cities and towns and is the only part in which 
many civilized people live. It lies east of the Paraguay 
River and north of the Parana, being located somewhat 
as Illinois is in our own country, the Parana corresponding 
to the Ohio River, and the Paraguay to the Mississippi. 



PARAGUAY 257 

The country is larger than Illinois and much like it in 
character. The land is beautifully rolling with numerous 
streams upon which the crops can be moved to the ports 
of the Parana and Paraguay rivers. It has great pastures 
and large tracts of rich soil. Running through it are one 
or two low mountain ranges which are covered with forests 
and add greatly to the beauty of the scenery. The climate 
is much like that of Florida, and therefore the products 
are semi-tropical. There are small plantations of tobacco, 
manioc, and sugar cane. Orange trees grow everywhere, 
and clumps of palm trees upon the great plains. 

The people of Paraguay are few. They are composed of 
the whites, of the mixed race, and of pure Indians. Those 
of the white and mixed races number only about six hundred 
thousand, while there are, perhaps, one fourth as many 
Indians. When the Spaniards first came these Indians 
were more civilized than most of the other tribes of the 
continent, and many of the Spaniards took Indian wives. 
Their sons and daughters also married Indians, and we find 
nearly all the people now have more or less Indian blood in 
their veins. 

The Indians were of the Guarani (gwa-ra/ne) tribes and 
to-day the Guarani language is more used than the Spanish. 
We shall take with us a guide who understands Guarani 
to act as interpreter during our tour, for we may be in places 
where the people cannot speak Spanish. 

Paraguay has no large cities. The largest by far is the 
capital, Asuncion, which is as big as Grand Rapids, Michi- 
gan. The next is Villa Rica (vel'ya re'ca), the population 
of which numbers thirty thousand or more, and after that 
Villa Concepcion and Villa Encarnacion (en-kar-na-syon'), 
fast-growing ports on the Parana and Paraguay rivers. 
Small towns and villages are scattered about the country. 



PARAGUAY 259 

The city of Asuncion is the business, social, and financial 
center and has always been the principal town of Paraguay. 
As we go through it we shall find many modern improve- 
ments. It has banks, telegraphs, colleges, and newspapers, 
the latter sold by newsboys as bright as those of our cities. 
There are good houses, several large churches, and many 
buildings mossy with age. 

Asuncion is one of the oldest cities of our hemisphere. 
It was founded in 1536. The first babies born in it had 
grown into gray-haired men and women before Captain 
John Smith landed at Jamestown. It was long one of the 
chief centers of civilization of South America, and for some 
years was more important than either Buenos Aires or 
Montevideo. It lost this place after the great war origi- 
nated by President Lopez between Paraguay and the 
combined forces of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil, in 
which Paraguay was forced to give up much of her terri- 
tory. At that time Asuncion was almost destroyed and 
the country laid desolate. 

Indeed, so many of the men were killed that the women 
had to do all kinds of work. This is so to-day. We notice 
this as we walk from the wharves into the city. It is 
early morning and the streets are. filled with women going 
to and from market. How like ghosts they look ! Each 
is clad in white with a long cotton sheet wrapped about her 
head so that only her dark face shows. The most of them 
are barefooted, and they make no noise as they walk spirit- 
like through the streets. There is one coming toward us 
who has a great jar upon her head and a load of firewood in 
her arms. She is walking rapidly, and her dark legs below 
her white skirts show halfway to the knees. Behind her 
comes another- white-sheeted figure upon whose head is a 
basket of oranges with a chunk of raw meat on top. The 




260 



PARAGUAY 261 

basket is perfectly balanced and she walks along without 
touching her burden. There are other women carrying all 
sorts of things on their heads — bags of vegetables, pans 
of meat, bundles of firewood ; in fact, they carry everything 
on their heads. It seems no trouble to keep the loads steady, 
for as we pass they do not lift their hands and take no pains 
to avoid being jostled. 




Paraguayan water carriers. The square objects are Standard Oil tins, 
in which petroleum has been brought from the United States. 

Asuncion is laid out in the Spanish style, the streets cross- 
ing one another at right angles with a park or a plaza here 
and there. Many of the streets are paved. There are 
electric car lines in all parts of the city and suburban lines 
reach out into the country. The city is now connected 
with Buenos Aires by railway and has a fine railway station. 

The streets are wide, but the town is so up hill and down 



262 SOUTH AMERICA 

that there are but few carriages and automobiles. There 
are many donkeys ridden or led by boys. Many of the 
carts are hauled by three mules abreast ; the animals go so 
fast that we jump up on the sidewalk to get out of the way. 

What curious houses ! They are almost all of one story, 
built in blocks close to the pavement so that they form solid 
walls from street to street. All have iron-barred windows 
and each is a different color. Here is one of sky blue, the 
house next to it is rose pink, and over the way is one of pale 
yellow. 

Here comes a policeman. He is dressed in a blue uni- 
form with a long sword at his side. If he should arrest us 
he would take us into a red jail and on the way we should 
pass the lilac-colored building in which congress meets. We 
might see the cream-tinted palace from where the president 
rules, and should go by houses of every color. The school- 
house may be of any color of the rainbow. The children 
usually go barefoot to school, it is so warm. 

Let us take a look at the business part of the town. The 
stores are not large but they are stocked with goods from 
all parts of the world. That building on the corner is the 
chief hotel of the country. It was once a palace of the 
tyrant Lopez. 

The market house is a block farther on. It looks more 
like a monastery than a market. It is a great one-story 
building running about a hollow square, with a low roof of 
galvanized iron which extends out upon all sides, over the 
cloisters or wide porches which surround it. The market 
house is painted red, the color forming a bright background 
for the strange figures about it. People are buying and 
selling at the meat stalls in the building. The court inside 
is filled with tables and benches where all kinds of Para- 
guayan things are sold. 



PARAGUAY 263 

Let us stop in the porches and look about us. Every 
part of the market is swarming with women. There are 
scores of them sitting on the bricks with their wares spread 
out before them. Others stand behind the butcher counters 
and with knives and saws cut up meat for their customers. 

Others have vegetables, laces, and jewelry, which they 
beseech us to buy. What a chatter they make as they 
bargain ! There are no scales or measures. See this 
vegetable woman who is sitting almost under our feet. 
She has a stock of green peas which she has arranged in 
piles on the bricks. There is about a pint in each pile, 
and the customers buy by eye measure. Each purchaser 
brings a cloth to wrap what she buys, for the women furnish 
neither paper nor string. 

In going through the market we can learn much concern- 
ing the chief products of Paraguay. We see tobacco sold 
everywhere and learn that Paraguay raises considerable 
tobacco for export to Europe, although most of the crop 
is consumed at home. Three fourths of the women we 
meet have cigars in their mouths. Both buyers and sellers 
are smoking like chimneys. Some of the women are chew- 
ing cigars, and others are rolling up leaf tobacco to smoke. 
We see small girls smoking and chewing, and boys of six or 
eight years smoke without stint. 

Among the other things sold in large quantities are manioc 
and oranges. Manioc is a root which takes the place of 
both potatoes and wheat as food. It grows in great bunches, 
each root being about the size of a carrot. There are two 
varieties, one of which is boiled or roasted like a potato, 
the other must first be ground and squeezed to take out 
a poisonous juice which it contains. When dry it becomes 
a flour that is eaten in soup and stews and in other 
ways. 



264 SOUTH AMERICA 

XXXIV. A TRIP INTO THE INTERIOR 
OF PARAGUAY 

TO-DAY we are traveling through the interior of Para- 
guay. We have taken our seats in one of the first- 
class cars of the railroad which runs from Asuncion to 
Villa Rica and thence southward to the Parana River 
at Encarnacion, where it connects with the railway system 
of Argentina and goes on to Buenos Aires. 

Leaving Asuncion, we pass the villas of rich Paraguayans, 
go by the agricultural college where the boys are playing 
under the palm trees, and then on into great pastures bor- 
dered with bushy woods and spotted here and there with 
small clumps of trees. The country is naturally fitted for 
live stock, and some day it will be one of the chief meat- 
producing lands of the world. It already has millions of 
cattle and sheep and tens of thousands of horses and goats. 

The lands are as rich as our prairies and resemble them, 
save that thickets and groves everywhere give shade for 
the cattle. We are in a vast sea of grass which seems to be 
flowing in and out among islands of trees. In summer the 
woods are fragrant and the plains are covered with beautiful 
flowers. Paraguay has miles of such pastures and the red 
soil grows the richest of fodder. 

There is a big herd of cattle now at our left. We can see 
the gauchos on horseback moving to and fro among the 
beasts and driving them this way and that. They are 
probably picking out the best for shipment, or they may be 
about to brand the stock. 

A little farther to the right we see a village and we pass 
small towns every few miles. Most of the Paraguayans 
live in villages. Their houses are merely thatched huts 
with walls of woven poles covered with mud. 



A TRIP INTO THE INTERIOR OF PARAGUAY 265 

We can visit one while the train waits to change engines 
at one of the stations. What a rude hut it is ! It has two 
parts, a room about fifteen feet square and a shed. The 




Lace-making is the chief industry of the Paraguayan women. 

This handkerchief was made by hand, taking many days 

of work. 

shed has no walls ; it is merely an extension of the thatched 
roof which covers the closed room, and is upheld by 
poles. 



266 SOUTH AMERICA 

The people live in the shed during the day. There are 
hammocks hung to the poles and men and women are sitting 
in them. Naked babies and half naked children play about 
on the dirt floor. The climate is warm in summer, and it 
is only the breeze sweeping through the shed that makes 
life endurable. 

There is but little furniture. We see only a table and 
one or two chairs. The chief object of interest is a log 
standing on end. It is about as high as your waist; and 
there is a hollow in the top. Before the log a woman is 
standing. She has a heavy club in her hand, which she 
is lifting up and dropping on some corn inside the hollow. 
Such logs are the grist mills of Paraguay. In them the 
women pound their corn and manioc to flour. We find 
the people hospitable. They live simply and do not 
seem to care for anything except something to eat, a little 
liquor to drink, and enough cigars to smoke all the day 
through. 

Now we are again on the train moving through the fields. 
What are those odd little hills which stand out like haycocks 
among the green grass ? There are hundreds of them, dark- 
red mounds, spotting the fields and looking as though they 
had been thrown up by man. We are now passing some 
as high as our waists. A little farther on is a field in which 
there are thousands which would reach hardly to our knees. 
What can they be? They seem to be nothing but dirt. 
They are ant cities, each mound being an ant apartment 
house, as it were. 

Paraguay has countless millions of ants which throw up 
such mounds all over the country. In some places there 
are so many that they destroy the pastures, and the people 
must fight the ants before they can cultivate the ground. 
Every hill must be dug out, for there are as many ants be- 




Young Paraguayans. Behind the boys is a cart loaded with sticks 
for firewood. The climate is hot and most of the children go 

barefoot. 
267 



A TRIP INTO THE INTERIOR OF PARAGUAY 269 

low as above ground. After that the hills are set on fire. 
They burn easily, and in this way the ants are destroyed. 

The ants sometimes burrow into the houses. A woman 
may awake in the morning to find a great mound of dirt 
on her parlor floor, the ants having decided to build a vil- 
lage there. She sweeps out the dirt and deluges the brick 
floor with hot water. A morning or so later she may find 
the ants again besieging her dwelling. 

But we are nearing a station. Get out your money for 
that crowd of women peddlers who are corning to canvass 
the cars. Here they are now. One has a pile of straw hats 
fitted one into the other on the top of her head. She will 
sell you a hat for fifteen cents of our money. There is a 
bareheaded girl with some cakes, each as large around as a 
dinner plate, and there are others with fruits and baby 
clothes and fine laces. Notice the lace handkerchief which 
that dark-faced little girl spreads out before you. It is as 
delicate as a cobweb and is made of fibers grown in the 
country. Lace-making is the chief industry of the Para- 
guayan women, and many beautiful things may be bought 
very cheaply. 

Let us get out on the platform and follow the crowd 
rushing toward the women squatted down on the bricks. 
They are peddlers, but their wares are too heavy to be 
brought into the train. Some are selling meat. Yes, 
selling beefsteaks at a station ! They have baskets of raw 
beef before them and are peddling it out to the passengers. 

The girls have cream-colored faces, dark eyes, soft black 
hair, and fairly good teeth. Nearly all are in their bare feet, 
and We have to be careful not to step on their toes with our 
heavy shoes as we stroll about through the crowd. 

Here is a maiden with a lot of oranges piled up before her. 
Let us see how many we can get for a medio, or three quar- 



270 



SOUTH AMERICA 



ters of a cent of our money. I point to the pile and say 
in my poor Spanish: "Quantos naranjas por un medio, 
senorita?" 

"Ocho," replies the girl as she puffs a volume of smoke 
out of her nostrils and hands me eight golden balls. 




There are many donkeys ridden or led by boys. 

We buy more and more oranges as we go from station 
to station, and find them as sweet as the best of our Florida 
fruit. They have a fine flavor. The skins are so full of oil 
that we can light with a match the drops we squeeze out on 
the surface. 

Paraguay is above all the country of oranges. We see 



MATE, OR PARAGUAY TEA 



271 



the trees in every thicket, and they peep at us out of the 
forests with their golden eyes. The mud huts of the farmers 
stand amid orange groves and in some places there are so 
many oranges that they rot on the ground. 

Oranges are sent by millions down the Paraguay River to 
Uruguay and Argentina. They are brought to the banks 
of the river from the orchards in ox carts so large that each 
will hold about five thousand ^oranges. The fruit is dumped 
out like so many potatoes, the drivers taking no more care 
in emptying their carts than when dumping dirt in repairing 
the roads. 

During the season there are great piles of oranges on the 
banks at all the river towns, with scores of women kneeling 
before them picking up the fruit and putting it into baskets. 
As soon as a basket is full it is handed to a carrier, a woman 
who raises it to her head and balances it there, as she trots 
along over a board walk from the bank to the steamer. We 
often see a hundred women thus trotting along in single 
file. Each has a round basket filled with oranges on the 
top of her head. She walks rapidly over the springing 
boards without touching her hand to the basket. 

The hold of the steamer is filled first and then a wire netting 
is stretched about the deck, making a fence as high as a 
man's head, within which the golden fruit is piled. 

XXXV. MATE, OR PARAGUAY TEA 

WE have returned from our trip into the interior and 
are again on our way to the north. There are 
boats twice a week from Asuncion to Villa Concep- 
cion, and once every fortnight a Brazilian steamer calls 
at the Paraguay ports on its way into the wilds of southern 



272 SOUTH AMERICA 

Brazil. We resolve to go first to Villa Concepcion, the 
chief port of northern Paraguay, and from there to make 
some tours through the forests on both sides of the river. 

A short distance above Asuncion the Paraguay narrows. 
The scenes along it are of great beauty. The banks are 
well wooded, and now and then we see a clearing in which 
is a village with orange trees hanging above the thatched 
huts. There are more wild birds than there were farther 
south. Alligators are numerous, and if we rise before day 
we may catch a glimpse of a panther swimming across the 
river as they sometimes do about dawn. We pass the mouth 
of the river Confuso and come to land again at Villa 
Concepcion. 

Here we see scores of men bringing bales of yerba mate 
(yer'ba mata'), or Paraguay tea, down to the wharves and 
putting them on the steamer. Yerba mate is one of the 
chief exports of Paraguay and Brazil. It commands a 
high price in all South American countries south of the 
equator, and Paraguay produces enough every year to 
make a cup of tea for every man, woman, and child in the 
world. Mate was used as tea before Columbus discovered 
America. The Indians induced the Spaniards to try it, 
and it has now become the favorite beverage of many South 
American people. Argentina uses seven times as much 
mate as coffee and twenty-six times as much as Chinese 
or Japanese tea. Brazil, which grows more coffee than any 
other country in the world, raises and consumes a great 
deal of mate. The people of Uruguay and Chile prefer 
it to all other drinks. 

But what is this tea that so tickles the South American 
palate? It is easy to learn. There is a woman on the 
steamer drinking some now. Our cabin boy will bring us 
a bowl if we ask him. It is served in a round gourd as big 




Above — Mate packed for export. 

Below — Mate leaf, bowl made of a gourd, and metal bombilla. 



273 



274 SOUTH AMERICA 

as a baseball with a handle fitted into the side, and one 
drinks it boiling hot. A spoonful of the powdered leaves 
is put into the bowl, the hot water is poured in, and the tea 
is ready for use. You do not put the bowl to your mouth, 
but suck the mate up through a tube. The tube is called 
a bombilla (bom-bel'ya) . Sometimes it is of silver, some- 
times of brass, and among the poorer people often a hollow 
reed. The metal tube ends in a bulb. This bulb is 
pierced with holes so that the tea is strained as you suck 
it into your mouth. 

Here comes the boy with our mate. Be careful how you 
put the bombilla between your lips. The boiling tea has 
made it so hot that it may take the skin off. Wet your lips 
first and then try it. How bitter the tea is ! At first drink- 
ing it does not taste at all good, but it is quite stimulating, 
and it will refresh one when tired. Many South Americans 
take nothing else for their early breakfast. If the Argen- 
tine gaucho has his mate in the morning he will gallop on 
horseback all day over the pampas and be satisfied to get 
his first meal when we are eating our suppers. 

The plants which furnish the mate are low bushes which 
grow among the other trees. They are much like the holly 
bush and sometimes grow as high as a small orange tree. 
The leaves are green all the year, the younger leaves making 
the best tea. The people who gather the mate leaves chop 
off the small branches and bring them in bundles to camps 
in the forest. Here there are drying houses, each consisting 
of a framework with an arched roof of poles woven together 
and upheld by posts. Under the roof there is a floor of 
clay, so well hammered down that it is hard as stone. 
After the leaves are dried they are reduced to a powder. 
This is baled in skins and is the mate of commerce. 
About a million dollars' worth of such bales of tea are made 



BRAZIL 275 

in Paraguay each year, and we shall see mule trains loaded 
with them making their way toward the ports. 

There are many other interesting things in Paraguay, 
but the mail steamer is almost due at Villa Concepcion and 
we must hurry back if we would go on it north to Brazil. 

1. Name the two sections into which Paraguay is divided. In 
what is it like Bolivia with regard to the sea ? 

2. How does Paraguay resemble Illinois? Florida? 

3. What races are found in Paraguay? Compare the Indians 
with those of the Gran Chaco ; with the Indians of the western 
United States. 

4. What is the principal city of Paraguay ? When was it founded ? 
Describe your walk through it. 

5. What are the chief things sold in the markets? 

6. Compare the country scenes with those of the United States. 

7. What fruit is most plentiful? Where does it grow in the 
United States? 

8. What is yerba mate? How is it gathered and prepared for 
export? What other drink comes chiefly from South America? 
Where does our tea come from ? 



XXXVI. BRAZIL 

LET us look at the map of South America and try to 
realize the enormous extent of Brazil before we begin 
to explore it. It is one of the largest countries of 
the world and it contains almost half of all the land of the 
continent. It is three times as large as the Argentine 
republic ; it is larger than the United States, not in- 
cluding Alaska. If it could be lifted up and laid down 
upon our country it would extend from east to west as far 
as from New York to San Francisco and it would take in 
a large part of both Mexico and Canada. Its Atlantic 



276 SOUTH AMERICA 

coast line is equal to that between Puget sound and Panama, 
and it touches every country in South America except 
Chile. 

This great republic consists of twenty states and one 
territory. Some of the states are enormous and others 
compare in size with the smaller states of our country, al- 
though none is as small as Maryland. Amazonas, the land 
of forests and rubber, would make nine states as large as 
Kansas ; Para (pa-ra/) , another great rubber land lying 
east of it, is ten times as large as Pennsylvania ; Matto 
Grosso (mat' 06 gros'oo), a highland much of which is 
covered with pasture, is nine times as large as Illinois ; and 
Goyaz (go-yasn) is larger than Texas. Goyaz has rich 
farms and pastures, and it is said to have iron by the 
millions of tons. Minas-Geraes (me'nash zha-rish') is rich 
in minerals, and like Sao Paulo (soun pou-loo) it has vast 
plantations of coffee. 

Brazil produces three fourths of the coffee of the world 
and a large part of the rubber, and it leads all countries 
in the production of cacao. It has more than two thousand 
tobacco factories and hundreds of sugar and cotton mills. 
It has tens of milHons of cattle and many sheep, goats, and 
horses. 

This vast territory is almost as varied in character as the 
United States. Much of it is made up of highlands and 
two fifths is an elevated plateau, the mean altitude of which 
is about that of our Appalachian Mountains. Upon the 
plateau there are peaks here and there that rise to a height 
of one and one half miles above the sea, and there is one 
that reaches nine thousand feet, being higher than any 
mountain on the eastern side of our country. The Amazon 
basin is larger than that of the Mississippi, a great part of 
it being lowland plains covered with forest. 



BRAZIL 277 

Brazil is well watered. It has small regions of drought, 
but there are no great deserts like those of our western 
highlands, the Sahara in Africa, or the Gobi desert in Asia. 
The plateau of Brazil is cut by great rivers, the Amazon 
gathering more water than any other river of the globe. 
The waterways of the Amazon system, if they could be 
joined end to end, are long enough to reach around the 
globe, and their navigable length, if laid upon the United 
States, would form two canals clear across it from Cape 
Cod to the Golden Gate. 

Brazil has a score of rivers outside of the Amazon basin, 
some of which are one thousand miles long, nevertheless 
almost unknown to us. The Parahyba (pa-ra-e'ba) River 
is as long as from New York to Chicago, the Sao Francisco 
(soun fran-ses'ko) is twice as long, and steamboats can sail 
on it farther than from St. Paul to New Orleans. The 
Parana, the headwaters of which are in Brazil, has water- 
falls that have been compared with those of Niagara, and 
at one place on the Sao Francisco the river drops two 
hundred and sixty-eight feet, or one hundred feet more than 
Niagara. Brazil is said to have waterfalls that could create 
over fifty million horse power, and in the state of Sao Paulo 
it is estimated that there is more than two million horse 
power in the undeveloped cascades. 

Such a vast country must have many climates. The 
equator crosses the northern part near the Amazon, and the 
whole of the Amazon basin is in the torrid zone. At the 
far south the climate is temperate. Even in the summer 
month of January the thermometer seldom reaches one 
hundred, and in midwinter, which occurs in July, there is 
often snow on the ground. Moreover, the highlands give 
much of the country farther north a temperate climate, 
and in those regions grow wheat and corn. 



278 SOUTH AMERICA 

Most of the lowlands are tropical and raise rice, tobacco, 
and sugar. There are large areas fitted for cotton, while 
several thousand feet above the sea are the greatest coffee 
plantations on earth. Brazil has vast grazing lands for 
the rearing of cattle. It has already many millions of cattle 
and will one day be a meat-exporting country. 

The Amazon valley has forests which cover an area two 
thirds as large as the United States proper, and there are 
extensive pine lands in southern Brazil. The country is also 
one of minerals, including almost everything except coal, 
from gold and diamonds to iron and graphite, although, the 
greater part of its mineral resources is as yet unexplored. 

South America is sometimes referred to as a part of Span- 
ish America. It would be quite as proper to call it a part 
of Portuguese America, for Brazil, which we have learned 
contains nearly half the land of the continent and almost 
one half of the people, was discovered and settled by people 
from Portugal. The Brazilians speak Portuguese instead 
of Spanish, which is the language of the other half of the 
continent. Rio de Janeiro (re'o da zha-na/ro) is the largest 
Portuguese speaking city of the world, and Brazil has five 
times as many inhabitants as Portugal. The population is 
about one fourth as large as that of the United States, and 
it is rapidly increasing by immigration from Europe. The 
country has land enough for a very great nation, and it 
will some day have many millions more people than it has 
now. 

The foreign commerce of Brazil is important, and its 
trade with the United States is rapidly increasing. We 
buy of Brazil more of its principal products, coffee and rub- 
ber, than any other country ; and the ships bringing them 
to the United States should take back cargoes of goods 
made in our country. During the World War in Europe our 



BRAZIL 



279 



exports of machinery, railway materials, and manufactured 
articles were doubled, and we shall sell more and more to 
the Brazilians as that country develops its resources. They 
are buying our railway materials, electrical machinery, 



^i-A 



« >.% / » Brit. \ Dutch y^l \ 



SCALE OF MILES 
6 l60 200 300 400 




Bahia *> 

'ml ° 



Valparaiso? j ^,. 
Santiago? 

him 



Alegre 



Grande do Sul "y 

V Principal Railroads. 



and other manufactures; and we are investing much of 
our capital in Brazilian mines, cattle ranches, and factories 
of one kind or another. 

Steamers sail regularly from the United States to Rio de 
Janeiro and Santos (san'toosh), calling at Pernambuco 
(per-nam-bod'ko) and Bahia ; also to Para and Manaos 



280 SOUTH AMERICA 

(man-a'os) , from which latter port there are smaller vessels 
going on up the Amazon to Iquitos (e-ke'tos) in Peru. 

XXXVII. THE WILDS OF MATTO GROSSO 

TO-DAY we are again moving northward on the Para- 
guay River. We have been traveling some time and 
are now in the wilds of southern Brazil. Our boat is 
winding in and out among the mountains, at the base of 
which are tall palms and fern trees. Now we pass forests 
so filled with vines and creepers that we can see only a few 
feet back from the banks ; we could not possibly make our 
way into the interior without an ax or knife. 

What is that furry face with the twinkling black eyes, 
grinning at us out of the branches, chattering and gnashing 
its teeth? That is a monkey. There are thousands of 
them in these forests. That great red and blue bird with 
a hooked bill as long as your hand is a toucan. There are 
other strange birds in the trees. 

We see many wild animals. There is a white deer in the 
bushes. Those black things near the shore which look like 
logs are alligators. They have been disturbed by the waves 
of our steamer and are climbing out on the banks. Some 
are diving down into the water or swimming to get out of 
the way of our boat. 

Look at the Indians on the other side of the river ! ' They 
are half naked ; they shake their spears at us as we steam on 
our way. This part of Brazil is full of wild men and there 
are more Indians than whites. Farther on to the west are 
vast regions which have no people but savages. 

As we proceed the country grows wilder, save here and 
there where we pass little farms cut out of the forests. 



THE WILDS OF MATTO GROSSO 



281 



Now our boats stop at one for fresh meat. The cattle are 
lifted on board by their horns. We get fish from the river 
and the small streams flowing into it. There are so many 
fish that one has only to explode a dynamite cartridge under 




Monkey. 

the water and dozens of fish, killed by the shock, will float 
on their backs all around the boat. 

At the boundary of Brazil we pass Fort Corimbra, and 
soon after reach Corumba, where we find the only customs 
house of this part of Brazil. While the steamer waits we 
visit the city, which is on a high bluff overlooking the river. 
It looks so much like Asuncion that we might think we 



282 SOUTH AMERICA 

were back among the Paraguayans were it not that the 
language is new. These people speak Portuguese and for 
weeks we shall hear little else. It sounds much like Spanish 
but is harsher and not so melodious. 

We are now traveling in Matto Grosso. The words 
mean " Great Forest" and the state is one of the wildest 
parts of Brazil. It has vast woods which have never been 
trodden by white men, and plains upon which thousands 
of wild cattle are feeding. The part through which we 
are traveling contains about the only white settlements, 
and Cuyaba (koo-ya-ba/) , where we stop next, is its capital, 
the metropolis of interior Brazil. 

Until recently the Paraguay River was the only easy 
route to Matto Grosso but one can now go there by railway 
from eastern Brazil. We are now on the height of land be- 
tween the Amazon and the Parana basins, and by a short 
journey we could reach some of the tributaries of the Ama- 
zon and sail down them to the ocean. 

At present most traveling in Matto Grosso is done by 
water. Horses and mules are but little used, and away from 
the river we are offered bullocks for riding animals. We see 
men riding bullocks, and women sitting astride them like 
the men. Bullocks are used for plowing. They drag huge 
carts over the road and serve as pack animals. It seems 
strange when we first climb on their backs, but we find 
them good saddle beasts, their gait being a sort of pace. 

We are surprised at Cuyaba. For such an out-of-the- 
way place it has many modern improvements. It has 
colleges and schools, electric cars, waterworks, and a cathe- 
dral. Sunday afternoons there is music in the plaza 
and we enjoy ourselves under the great palm trees, whose 
fanlike leaves move to and fro in the breeze, 

The region about Cuyaba has fine farms, and many new 




Indian boy of Matto Grosso. He wears beads and feathers solely 
for ornament . He stands on the skin and head of a jaguar. 



283 




28 4 



THE NIAGARA OF SOUTH AMERICA 285 

cattle ranges are being formed in different parts of Matto 
Grosso. The country has excellent grass and it will some 
day furnish much of the meat of Brazil. Some fine cattle 
have been introduced, among them the sacred bulls wor- 
shiped in India. 

There is gold in the hills near Cuyaba and we are told 
that the boys of the city go out after a big rain and search 
for grains of gold in the streets which have been flooded by 
the streams from the hills, and are often well paid for their 
trouble. We look to see if we cannot perhaps find a stray 
golden nugget, but alas ! there is nothing but sand. 

XXXVIII. THE NIAGARA OF SOUTH 
AMERICA — SOUTHERN BRAZIL 

WE have been traveling for more than a month since 
we left Matto Grosso. We sailed from Cuyaba 
south on the Paraguay River to Asuncion, from 
where we went by rail to Encarnacion and were ferried 
across the Alto-Parana River to the town of Posades (po- 
sa-das') in Argentina. The Alto-Parana is the name given 
to the Parana north of where it unites with the Paraguay. 
Posades is one of the ports and is the starting point for the 
falls of the Iguassu River (e-gwa-soo') , which might be 
called the "Niagara of South America." At Posades we 
took a steamer and made our way up the Alto-Parana to the 
little town of Puerto Aguirre near the boundary between 
Argentina and Brazil, where the Iguassu River flows into 
the Parana after its mighty drop at the falls. 

The Iguassu River rises in the highlands of eastern Brazil 
and flows for about four hundred miles westward before 
it enters the Alto-Parana. We take carriages and ride 



286 SOUTH AMERICA 

through the woods for a distance of ten or twelve miles 
before we arrive at the cataracts. We can hear the noise 
of the waters long before we reach them, and when we come 
out we behold a sight which reminds us of our own great falls 
at Niagara. 

The Iguassu is now at the height of the flood season and a 
mighty volume of water is pouring down over the rocks. 
The falls are several times as wide as Niagara and they drop 
in a series of terraces or steps, one of which is much higher 
than our falls at Goat Island. The water goes over the 
rocks with a terrible noise and a mist rises high into the 
air and drops almost like rain. 

The cataracts are surrounded by a dense vegetation, and 
a short ride from them will take one into tropical jungles. 
In the dry season the falls have a much smaller volume, 
but they are a valuable water power which eventually will 
be harnessed for electricity as are those of Niagara. 

Leaving the falls, we go back to Posades and thence by 
rail through the rich Argentine province of Entre Rios 
to Buenos Aires, where we take a steamer and make our 
way from port to port along the Atlantic shores of 
southern Brazil. 

Our first stop is at Porto Alegre (por-to a-la/gra), the capi- 
tal of Rio Grande do Sul (re'o gran'da d<56 sool) . This state, 
like its sister states of Parana and Santa Catharina 
(kat-a-re'na) , is devoted to raising corn, wheat, and meat. 
Its pastures are much like those of Argentina. It has 
cattle and sheep, and great meat-packing plants, and also 
establishments such as we saw on the Uruguay River, 
where hundreds of oxen are killed every day for jerked or 
dried beef. 

Porto Alegre has public schools, colleges, newspapers, 
and stores. We are surprised to see that more than half 




A pine tree of southern Brazil. There are many such trees. 

287 



288 SOUTH AMERICA 

the people are Germans. There are German clerks in the 
stores, and we meet German children everywhere on the 
streets. Southern Brazil is largely settled by Germans. 
They find the climate quite as temperate as that of the 
fatherland and make their homes here, just as many Ger- 
mans have done in the United States. 

The town is connected by railway with Uruguay and 
with other parts of southeastern Brazil. 

i. Bound Brazil. Compare it with South America in size; with 
Europe; with the United States. How many states has Brazil? 
How many has our country? What is the size of your state? 
How many such states would equal Brazil? 

2. Describe Brazil as to surface and drainage. What parts of 
Brazil have a temperate climate? Why? When is it summer in 
southern Brazil? When is it winter? 

3. What language is spoken in Brazil? Why? 

4. What are the chief products of Brazil? What do we sell to 
Brazil? What do we buy from her? 

5. What are the chief routes from Brazil to Europe? To the 
United States? (See maps and Tables I and II:) Suppose you 
were ordered to leave home to-morrow for Rio de Janiero, how would 
you go? How far would you have to travel and how long would 
you be on the way ? 

6. Tell the story of our travels through Matto Grosso. Can we 
reach Matto Grosso by railway ? Locate Cuyaba. 

7. Where are the great falls of South America? Compare them 
with Niagara and with the Victoria Falls. (See Carpenter's "North 
America" and Carpenter's "Africa.") 

8. What are the chief products of southern Brazil? Name the 
three southern states. How do they compare with Uruguay in 
products and climate? What European people are found there 
in great numbers? 

9. Look up in your history the story of the discovery of Brazil ; 
of Rio de Janeiro. 

10. Name the chief rivers of Brazil. Compare them with rivers 
of the United States. 



SANTOS AND SAO PAULO 289 

XXXIX. SANTOS AND SAO PAULO 

FROM Porto Alegre we steam northward along the coast 
of southern Brazil to Santos, enter a wide bay, and 
come to anchor at docks among vessels from the United 
States and Europe taking on coffee. Brazil produces most 
of the coffee of the world and Santos is the chief port from 
which it is shipped. The vessels which have just come in 
are unloading rice from India, codfish from Massachusetts 
and Newfoundland, cotton goods from Liverpool and Bos- 
ton, and lumber from the pine lands of Maine. They will 
replace these cargoes with coffee, which will soon be on its 
way across the Atlantic to supply the* breakfast tables of 
other lands. 

Going on shore, we stroll about from one ship to another. 
What a strong smell of coffee surrounds us ! The air is 
full of it and everywhere we look we shall see it in one shape 
or another. Motor trucks piled high with bags are coming 
in from the trains to the warehouses, and scores of negroes 
are unloading the carts and carrying the bags to the steamers. 
Each bag weighs one hundred and thirty-two pounds, but 
a man lifts it on his head and shoulders, and trots off as 
though he were carrying feathers. The warehouses are 
full of coffee. The bags are piled like so much cord wood, 
some of the rooms being packed from the floor to the roof. 
Not a few of the establishments have endless belts which 
carry the bags to a chute, down which they fly into the hold 
of the steamers, much as we saw the wheat loaded at Rosario. 
The work goes on rapidly, and during the harvesting season 
more than fifty million pounds of coffee are often shipped 
in one day. The larger part of this goes to the United 
States, our people taking more than one half of the crop 
raised in Brazil. 




2QO 



SANTOS AND SAO PAULO 291 

Leaving the wharves, we stroll about the city. It is 
wonderfully clean and well kept. Its buildings are of sev- 
eral stories and painted in all the colors of the rainbow. 
There are great palm trees in the parks and plazas, and the 
homes in the suburbs have many tropical plants in their 
gardens. We take the electric street cars and ride out to 
the seaside resort of Guaruja (gwa-roo'zha) . It is one 
of the finest of Brazil and is a famous summering place 
for the southern parts of the republic. 

Returning to Santos, we take tickets for Sao Paulo, which 
lies on the plateau over the mountains about forty-seven' 
miles away. The ride is delightful. The plateau is several 
thousand feet above Santos and its climate is that of the 
temperate zone. As we leave the station the train carries 
us through fields of bananas, the tall plants bending with 
their huge bunches of green fruit. We go by coco- 
nut trees and then on through a jungle of tropical vegeta- 
tion, which becomes more and more dense in the foothills 
and on our way up the mountain. The trees are now 
loaded with orchids and other air-plants bearing exquisite 
flowers. They are bound together and wrapped around 
with creepers and vines, the whole forming a wall of green 
on each side of the track; The vegetation is so dense that 
we can see only a few feet through the trees. 

The railway from Santos to Sao Paulo is a wonder of civil 
engineering. It crosses deep canyons and cuts its way 
through many tunnels. The rainfall is heavy and the road- 
bed is protected by gutters fined with cement. At the foot 
of the mountains the ordinary locomotives are uncoupled 
and the train is divided into sections of two cars each. 
Each section is now fastened by a steel rope or cable to a 
stationary engine at the station above, which winds up the 
cable, pulling our cars up the hills. When the cars reach 



292 SOUTH AMERICA 

an altitude about a half mile higher than where we started 
they are on the plateau. The sections are again coupled 
and an ordinary steam railroad locomotive carries the train 
across the country to Sao Paulo. 

We take taxicabs at the station and are soon riding 
through the second largest city of Brazil and the third in 
size on the South American continent. Sao Paulo is one 
of the wealthiest, most progressive, and most beautiful of 
all the cities south of the equator. It is the financial center 
of the coffee industry and the railway center of southern 
Brazil. It is also the capital of the state of Sao Paulo, one 
of the richest parts of the republic. 

Sao Paulo is an old city. It was founded more than fifty 
years before Captain John Smith landed at Jamestown, 
but most of its houses are new and its buildings modern. 
It has wide, well-paved streets, electric cars moved by the 
waterfalls of the river Tiete (te-a-ta/), thirty-five miles 
away, and magnificent public buildings, theaters, and edu- 
cational institutions. The city has one hundred and sixty 
public schools, which are about as good as our own. It 
has also a college, with teachers from the United States, 
which has pupils from every part of the continent. 

We stay overnight at the hotel and upon rising go out 
for a walk. It is early morning and we meet many children 
on their way to school. Most of the girls are bareheaded 
and many wear dark-colored clothing. The boys have 
caps, coats, and knee-breeches, with their legs bare from 
their knees to their shoes, where their short stockings end. 
Each child has a bag of books in his hand. They are laugh- 
ing and playing on their way to school. 

Step out of the way of the street cars ! They come in 
trains, one car following another until a dozen have passed. 
Some of the cars are loaded with freight. They are on the 



IN THE LAND OF COFFEE 293 

way to the markets. They are second-class cars, used 
chiefly by the servants, for a man with a large basket or 
bundle is not allowed in the regular passenger cars. We 
see also many automobiles and can get taxicabs at low rates 
of fare. *• 

During our stay in Sao Paulo we visit the department of 
agriculture, which has to do with the state of Sao Paulo, 
and there learn something about the enormous resources 
of this part of Brazil. The country has large-cattle ranches, 
and upon the lowlands are raised tobacco, cotton, and rice. 
The highlands have great areas devoted to Indian corn, 
wheat, and beans, and, most important of all, to coffee. 



>X*c 



XL. IN THE LAND OF COFFEE 

BRAZIL produces more than two thirds of all the 
coffee used by man. This very morning there are 
millions of people in the United States who have had 
a cup of Brazilian coffee with their breakfast. We are 
great coffee drinkers and we ought to know about this part 
of South America, for most of our coffee comes from 
here and we are the chief customers Brazil has for this crop. 
Coffee grows best in a semitropical climate. The plants 
cannot endure frost, but at the same time they must not be 
spoiled by the heat. The climate of many parts of Brazil 
is just suited to them, and the best coffee regions are on the 
highlands west and south of Rio de Janeiro, which are from 
one to three thousand feet above the level of the sea. The 
best of all the coffee lands are in the state of Sao Paulo, 
where we now are. They he several hundred miles back 
from the coast in a country which is gently rolling, and much 



294 SOUTH AMERICA 

of which looks not unlike parts of the United States. The 
plantations cover but a small part of Sao Paulo. Alto- 
gether, they are not equal to half the size of the state of 
Massachusetts ; nevertheless, they support more than seven 
hundred million coffee trees, and annually produce enough 
to give every man, woman, and child on the earth one pound 
of coffee and leave some to spare. 

But let us take the train and visit some of the big coffee 
estates. Some of the largest of them are about Ribeirao 
Preto (re-be'e-rob pra/tbb), so far away from the city of 
Sao Paulo that it takes us almost a day to reach them by 
rail. We ride through rolling plains covered with grass, 
pass clumps of palms, and then go on through forests of 
hardwoods, the trunks of which are twisted about like 
corkscrews. The trees are bound together in a mat by the 
long vines and creepers which hang down from their 
branches. Now we pass a banana plantation, and now 
lemon and orange trees in the gardens by the side of the 
road. « 

This part of Brazil has not had rain for some weeks. A 
cool wind is blowing and the air from the plowed fields is 
loaded with dust. The boys who peddle fruit at the stations 
are covered with dust, and we find ourselves sneezing as it 
gets into our noses. 

What queer dust it is ! It is as red as a brick and it turns 
everything red. We are soon like so many Sioux Indians, 
our collars are red streaks around our dusty red necks, and 
our coats look as though they were sprinkled with cayenne 
pepper. There is red on the fences and on the trees and 
bushes. We see wide streaks of deep red cutting their way 
through the reddish green grass. Those streaks are the 
roads, for the ground under the sod is the color of brick. 

This red land is the famous coffee soil of Brazil. Its 



IN THE LAND OF COFFEE 295 

color comes from the iron mixed with the other matter com- 
posing it, and the redder it is the better the soil is thought 
to be for the raising of coffee. 

The plantations begin about fifty miles from Sao Paulo, 
and from there we ride all day among hills covered with coffee 
trees. Most of the crop is grown upon large estates. The 
one we visit has about five million trees and is the largest 
coffee plantation of the world. It is so large that we could 
not go around the outside of it in a day, if we began walk- 
ing when the sun rose and kept on steadily until dark. 
Railroad tracks have been built upon it from the factories 
to all parts of the estate, and we are carried from field to 
field on one of the little steam engines kept for hauling the 
crops. 

The ride is a beautiful one. About us as far as our eyes 
can see is nothing but coffee bushes. The whole land is 
covered with a mantle of green, striped here and there with 
bands of bright red. The green mantle is the coffee and 
the red stripes are the roads. The bushes are set out in 
regular rows and extend on and on, until they lose them- 
selves in the sky at the tops of the hills in the distance. 

As we proceed we can see the plants in their different 
stages of growth. In some fields they are not as high as 
our knees and in others they are three times as high as 
our heads. Here, men are plowing the fields, driving care- 
fully through the green plants and turning up the red soil. 
There, boys are down on their knees pulling the weeds ; 
farther on, a gang of laborers is laying out new rows 
among the stumps of the freshly cleared lands, while others 
are setting out coffee plants from the nurseries. 

Five thousand people are kept busy on this plantation 
raising the crop and preparing it for the market, and we 
shall learn that a great deal of work is required to produce 




2g6 



IN THE LAND OF COFFEE 297 

the cup of coffee we have at breakfast. Most of it comes 
from Brazil. In the first place let me tell you what coffee 
beans are. You have seen in grocery stores the ground 
powder and the green and brown coffee beans from which 
it is made. These coffee beans are far different from the 
coffee berries when picked from the trees. The beans 
are the seeds of the berries. You can see some of the 
berries on that bush over there. They are just like dark 
red cherries, and each is about the size of a marble. 
They hang in clusters close to the limbs among the green 
leaves. In each berry are two seeds, which form the 
coffee of commerce. There are smaller cherries at the 
ends of the branches. Some of these have only one 
round seed inside them. Those seeds are sold as mocha 
coffee, although the real mocha is supposed to come from 
Arabia. 

How the seeds are gotten out we shall see later. Out 
here in the fields we must learn how the bushes are grown. 
In the first place, the land must be cleared and made fit 
for the crop. There is a great difference in the soils of 
Brazil, and one must have just the right kind of soil to 
raise coffee. The soil of this plantation is made of de- 
composed lava mixed with decayed vegetable growth. It 
contains potash, soda, and lime, and also oxide of iron 
and phosphoric acid. 

The beans to be sown are selected as carefully as 
the boys of our corn clubs select their seed corn. They 
are first planted in seed beds and soon sprout and little 
green plants shoot up through the soil. After a few 
months they have grown a foot high. They are now 
ready for transplanting to the fields. The plants are set 
quite deep in the ground. A little basin is dug for each 
one, and at first sticks or leaves are spread over it to 



2 q8 SOUTH AMERICA 

protect it from the hot rays of the sun. It is carefully hoed 
to keep down the weeds, and at the age of four years it be- 
gins to bear fruit. A good tree should produce three or 
four pounds of coffee a year, and in the rich coffee lands 
of southern Brazil, a tree will often bear crops for thirty 
years or more. The coffee begins to blossom in December, 
and in April or May the berries are ripe and the picking be- 
gins. Hundreds of men, women, and children may then 
be seen moving among the bushes, picking the ripe red 
berries into baskets, and carrying them to the cars which 
are to take them to the factories on the plantation. 

On our way over the estate we see long rows of one-story 
houses and near them large buildings which look like ma- 
chine shops. The small houses are the homes of the laborers 
on the estate. The big buildings are the places in which 
the coffee seeds are taken out of the berries and prepared 
for the markets. They contain the machinery which ex- 
tracts the seeds, and near them are the drying floors, great 
fields paved with cement, upon which the coffee beans are 
dried in the sun after they are taken out of the berries. 

But first let us see how the seeds are extracted. There 
are some berries which have just come in, from the fields. 
Take up one and look at it. It is just like a cherry and 
almost as soft. Just inside the skin is a pulp and within 
this are two half-round coffee beans with their flat sides 
touching each other. Take out the seeds. They are white, 
not green like the coffee of commerce. Bite one of them 
and you will find that it has two skins. The outer one is 
white and like parchment, and the inner is as thin as the 
thinnest of fine tissue paper. The outer skin is called the 
parchment skin and the inner the silver skin, for it is much 
like silver spun out like a cobweb. Both these skins must 
be taken off before the coffee can be sent to our markets. 



IN THE LAND OF COFFEE 



299 



The first thing to be done is to get rid of the pulp. For 
this purpose the berries are thrown into a hopper, and run 
through machines that squash the pulp without hurting 
the seeds. By these machines the berries are reduced to 
a mush of pulp and seeds. The mush is now carried over 




A street in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This is the metropolis of the coffee 

country. 



a long copper cylinder in which there are hundreds of holes, 
each big enough for a coffee bean to pass through. As the 
mush falls upon the cylinder the beans drop through the 
holes and are carried into a little canal, from which they 
float off in great vats. They are next scoured clean in a 
tank in which a screw moves round and round among the 
beans, leaving them at the end as white as snow. The next 



3°° 



SOUTH AMERICA 



process is drying. The beans are spread out upon plat- 
forms and left in the sun for several weeks until they have 
become as dry as a bone. They are carefully watched at 
this time and covered at night and when it rains so that 
they may not get wet. Men stir them with wooden rakes 
so that they may be evenly dried. 




Public school near Sao Paulo. 



This requires great care, but it is by no means all that 
must be done before the coffee is ready for sale. Each little 
bean must be undressed, as it were. Its parchment coat 
must be taken ofl and its silver-skin underclothes removed 
so that it may be sent out in its olive-green nakedness to 
our markets. To do this the beans are thrown into ma- 
chines that break the skins. They are next run through 
fanning mills by which the skins are blown out in the form 
of chaff, and the coffee seeds run out by themselves. 



A CITY OF SNAKES 301 

The seeds are of different sizes, some large and some small, 
some round and some almost flat. They must be graded 
before they are ready for shipment. This is done by pass- 
ing them over a series of sieves in which are holes of differ- 
ent sizes, so that the grains of each size flow out through 
different pipes into bags ready to be shipped to the 
markets. 

We spend some time in going about among the laborers 
on the estate. Many of them are Italians who have taken 
the place of the negro slaves, who were the coffee workers 
of Brazil a few years ago, and not a few come over the ocean 
only for a season, going back when the coffee is picked. 

The plantation is carefully managed. It has its over- 
seers, bookkeepers, and accountants, who try to see that 
nothing goes to waste. There is a large store where the 
laborers can buy food, and it has its own bakery, foundry, 
and sawmill. It is, indeed, a little world of its own, which 
has grown up here in the heart of South America to pro- 
duce the coffee we drink at our meals. 



aXKc 



XLI. A CITY OF SNAKES — SOME WILD 
ANIMALS OF BRAZIL 

DURING our stay in Sao Paulo we motor out to Butan- 
tan to see the city of snakes. Yes, a city of 
snakes, a live flesh-and-blood city whose inhabitants are 
venomous reptiles ! The city was built for the snakes. 
Its 'houses are of concrete. They are of the shape of old- 
fashioned beehives and of about the same size. The city 
is surrounded by a little wall of concrete and a deep moat 
of water where the reptiles can swim about. The snakes 



302 SOUTH AMERICA 

are caught in the forests and brought here in order that they 
may be studied ; also that their poison may be used to 
inoculate horses and thereby produce a serum or medicine, 
which forms an antidote to cure the bite of a snake upon 
human beings. 

The institution makes medicine not only for snake bites 
but for diphtheria, lockjaw, plagues of many kinds, and 
various other diseases. It has already sent out many 
thousands of tubes of anti-snake medicine and has had tens 
of thousands of snakes of many varieties. 

Such medicines are much needed in Brazil. The country 
has many poisonous snakes and there are hundreds of deaths 
from them every year. The snakes upon which the experi- 
ments are made are sent in by the farmers, each man receiv- 
ing a tube of the serum for every snake he sends in. The 
horses inoculated with the poison are at first given very 
small doses, which are gradually increased. At the end of 
the year a horse may carry enough venom in his blood to 
kill two thousand horses that have not been treated at all. 
The blood of such a horse can be used to make the anti- 
poisonous medicine. 

The director of the institution, who might be called the 
mayor of the snake city, takes us about and shows. us its 
curious inhabitants. He tells us there are two families 
of snakes here which are very dangerous ; one is the rattle- 
snake and the other the jararaca, the latter having a bite 
so poisonous that it will kill a man or animal within a few 
moments. He afterwards brings forth a mussurama, an- 
other snake which is not at all poisonous, but which is the 
chief enemy of the jararaca. The two snakes are of nearly 
the same size, each being about five feet in length. He tells 
us that the mussurama is a good snake, and allows us to 
handle it. 



A CITY OF SNAKES 303 

Later, the director puts the two snakes upon a large table 
to show us how the good snake is able to fight and kill the 
bad one. For a moment the two snakes appear to take no 
notice of each other. Then the mussurama makes a leap 
for the jararaca and grabs it by the neck just back of its 
head. The jararaca is not able to reach its enemy, for 
the mussurama keeps the grip on its neck. It holds the 
jararaca as in a vice, twisting it slowly from one side to 
the other until its neck is broken and it is practically 
dead. 

It does not seem dead, however, for its coils keep twisting 
this way and that. The mussurama now loosens its grip 
on the neck, takes the head of the dying snake in its mouth, 
and begins to swallow it slowly. First the head disappears, 
and then, inch by inch, the body, until at last the whole 
of the jararaca has gone inside the mussurama, which darts 
out its tongue as though asking for more. The author has 
witnessed several such fights and in each case the bad snake 
was swallowed by the good one without any injury to the 
latter from its enemy's poisonous fangs. 

As we continue our travels through Brazil we shall learn 
more about the snakes and other reptiles of the different 
parts of the country. The Amazon valley has the anaconda 
or water boa and the boa constrictor. The anaconda 
spends much of its time in the water and often lies coiled 
in the branches of trees above the streams, waiting to prey 
upon the wild animals which come down to drink. Stories 
are told of its killing and eating cattle, horses, and jaguars ; 
but it probably eats only small specimens of these animals, 
its more common food consisting of rats, peccaries, birds, 
fishes, and reptiles. The author has the skin of an anaconda 
killed in the Amazon valley during his stay in South 
America. It is about twenty feet long, and the snake from 



304 SOUTH AMERICA 

which it came was large enough to have swallowed a two- 
or three-year-old baby. The skin of one of the same species 
of snakes, which is twenty-nine feet long, is shown in the 
British museum at London. The boa constrictor is smaller 
than the anaconda, being seldom more than twelve feet 
in length. It is a beautiful serpent, having a brown skin 
changing to a brick red at the tail, with tan-colored spots 
on the back. It seizes its prey with its teeth and then winds 
its body around it, gradually squeezing it to death. 

Brazil has many alligators, also turtles of enormous size. 
The coast and river waters swarm with live things, and it 
is said that the Amazon and its tributaries have almost two 
thousand species of fish. The country is full of insects 
and butterflies. There are seventeen hundred different 
kinds of birds, ranging from the great king vulture to 
the tiny humming bird, and including many kinds of 
parrots and the long-billed toucan. Some of the birds 
have beautiful feathers and they are caught and killed 
for their plumage, which is used to decorate hats and 
bonnets. 

The wild beasts of Brazil are similar to those we have al- 
ready seen in our travels. Many tapirs are found in the 
wilds, while jaguars and pumas infest the forested valleys. 
There are also foxes and raccoons, twelve species of opossums 
and six of porcupines, as well as sloths, armadillos, and ant- 
eaters. There are deer and wild hogs and more than fifty 
species of monkeys, some of which fill the forest with the 
noise of their howling. We shall see many of these animals 
as we travel up the great rivers and especially during our 
stay in the Amazon valley. 



RIO DE JANEIRO 305 

XLIL RIO DE JANEIRO 

WE are again on board ship this morning. We have 
gone back to Santos and taken the steamer for 
Rio, and are now sailing into its wonderful harbor. 
We might have traveled from Sao Paulo to Rio by rail, 
but we wish to pass through this harbor, one of the most 
beautiful of the whole world. It has been compared to 
the Golden Horn at Constantinople; the author has seen 
both places and he thinks the Bay of Rio de Janeiro far the 
finer. The harbor is so large that all the ships of the world 
could be anchored in it at one time. 

About the bay, just a little back from its shores, rise the 
Organ Mountains, covered with the rich green of the tropics. 
One of the hills looks like a hunchback, and the people have 
called it the "Corcovado" (kor-ko-va'doo) , a Portuguese 
word meaning hunchback. Its top is more than a half- 
mile above the city and a little railroad goes up it. Another 
hill has a summit much like the round head of a man, the 
trees upon it resembling the hair on the head. Other forms 
remind us of battlements and forts; all together making a 
great wall of green about the harbor. 

We enter at the smaller end of the bay, going in through 
a narrow channel between two forts. On one side of us is 
the " Sugar Loaf," a mountain shaped like a cone. It rises 
almost straight from the sea to a height greater than that 
of the Eiffel Tower at Paris. On the opposite side are 
islands so close that at a distance we fear we may graze 
the shore as we steam in. 

Now we have passed through the entrance. We are in 
a land-locked sea, upon which scores of little islands are 
seemingly floating, and in front of us under the hills, rest- 
ing apparently upon the water, is the red-and-white city of 




306 



RIO DE JANEIRO 307 

Rio de Janeiro. It seems to be looking at us through the 
masts of the steamers anchored in 'front of the town. 

Rio de Janeiro is one of the old cities of our hemisphere. 
It has grown up here because of its excellent harbor where 
goods can be landed easily and carried by railroad to in- 
terior Brazil. 

Let us stop a moment before going on shore while I tell 
you its history. It is always important to know just what 
names mean, for from the name of a place we can often 
learn something of its origin. It is so with Rio de Janeiro. 
The harbor was discovered just ten years after Columbus 
landed in America. At that time navigators from the dif- 
ferent parts of Europe were sailing across the Atlantic to 
find out all about the New World. 

Among them were two men named Joao Manoel 
(zho-oun' ma-nwal') and Americus Vespucius. They sailed 
along the coast of Brazil in 1501 and when they came by the 
" Sugar Loaf" into the bay where we now are they thought 
they were entering a river and so called it "Rio," which 
in Portuguese means river. The day was the first of Jan- 
uary, which supplied the latter part of the name — "River 
of January," Rio de Janeiro. It was afterwards discovered 
that it was not a river at all ; for although about twenty 
small rivers flow down the mountains into the harbor, its 
waters are an arm of the sea. 

About fifty years later the first settlement was made. 
The city was slow in growing. Bahia, farther north, was 
nearer Europe and for a long time much more important, 
and it was not until 1808 that the harbor of Rio was opened 
to the commerce of the world. It was then found to be a 
much better gate to southern and central Brazil and it be- 
came the chief port of the country. Since that time Rio 
has steadily grown and is now the capital of the republic. 




3o8 



RIO DE JANEIRO 309 

It is next to Buenos Aires in size and importance among 
the cities of South America. 

As we land at the wharves we are surrounded by steamers 
from Europe and the United States. Gangs of laborers, 
both negroes and whites, are busy loading and unloading 
boats. Some of the ships taking on coffee are from Ham- 
burg, Liverpool, and Lisbon, and others are loading for 
New York, Baltimore, and New Orleans. There are many 
steamers discharging all sorts of goods for the city and the 
interior of Brazil. The vessel next ours is taking off a cargo 
of jerked meat from the beef factories of Uruguay. The 
meat is in bags and the men carry them out on their heads. 
Near by is a vessel from Maine filled with pine lumber, and 
next a tank steamer containing coal oil that a short time 
ago was under the ground in our Oklahoma oil regions. 

Now we have entered the chief coffee-exporting section. 
There is coffee everywhere. The streets are walled with 
warehouses in which we see coffee piled up by the thousands 
of bags. We can hardly get along on the sidewalk on ac- 
count of the men unloading the wagons and motor- trucks. 
Scores of half-naked men are carrying the bags into the 
warehouses, and dozens of negro women are down on their 
knees, sweeping the stray coffee beans out of the cobble- 
stones of the street that they may wash and sell them again. 
The building at our right is a coffee factory, and that hum 
comes from the machines which are cleaning the beans for 
the market. Next door is the office of an exporting house 
which ships coffee to New York, and farther on are the 
commission houses which buy coffee to sell to shippers. 
The scenes remind us of Santos. The air smells of coffee, 
and we realize that we are in the second of the two great 
coffee ports of the world. 

We have already learned how important the coffee crop 




3io 



MORE ABOUT RIO 



311 



is to Brazil. It is the chief money crop of the country and 
almost half of it comes to Rio de Janeiro to be shipped. 
Here also are the stores which supply the coffee planters 
with goods, so that through coffee Rio de Janeiro has to a 
large extent become the great city it is. 

We spend some time in the coffee section and then take 
taxicabs for a short ride through the city. Rio de Janeiro is 
too big to be seen in a day. It covers about nine square 
miles, extending from the harbor back to the hills. The streets 
go up hill and down. They cross one another at all sorts 
of angles, and we are unable to keep the points of the com- 
pass as we are whirled this way and that until we come to 
our hotel in the wide Avenida Rio Branco. 



=»X*4< 



XLIII. MORE ABOUT RIO 

WE shall take an interpreter with us this morning. 
The Spanish we have learned in the South American 
capitals will be of little use in Rio de Janeiro, for 
the people here speak Portuguese. Rio is the largest Por- 
tuguese-speaking city of the world. 

We first motor through the city to get a general idea of 
its various features. The main street is the Avenida Rio 
Branco. It is more than a mile long and one hundred feet 
wide. It is paved with asphalt, and beds of flowers and 
rows of trees run through its center. Its wide sidewalks 
are made of black and white flint laid in patterns, and back 
of them are magnificent stores and office buildings fining 
the street from one end to the other. 

From this avenue we pass into other magnificent boule- 
vards, upon which are beautiful buildings, and we are told 



3 i2 SOUTH AMERICA 

that the greater part of Rio de Janeiro has been torn down 
and rebuilt within the past few years. The city is now one 
of the finest of the world, and has many miles of drives lined 
with narrow parks rilled with tropical trees and flowers. 
It was once a pest hole of yellow fever and other tropical 
diseases, but it is now kept very clean. It is one of the 
most healthful cities near the equator. 

We spend some time in the business parts of the city. 
There are well-dressed men everywhere. Rio has many 
rich citizens and the streets are thronged with buyers and 
sellers. The crowd is a strange one and contains people 
of all the nations, including our own. We see the faces of 
Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards, French, Brazilians, and 
English. There are professional men dressed in black with 
tall hats, and merchants in business suits of white linen. 
There are Italian vegetable peddlers with baskets fastened 
to poles on their shoulders, and half-naked porters with loads 
on their heads. There are bareheaded women and smartly 
dressed boys moving to and fro, forming all together such 
a human mixture as you will see nowhere else upon earth. 

Now we have left the business section and are passing 
through the side streets. How many peddlers there are ! 
Nearly all the hucksters of Rio carry their vegetables, 
fruits, and fish from house to house on their shoulders or 
heads instead of in carts or on donkeys. Here comes a 
man selling fish. He has two baskets fastened to the ends 
of a pole resting on his shoulders. Behind him trots a man 
loaded down with long strings of onions. He has stopped 
at that house over there and is selling a string to the cook. 

There is another queer character. I mean the man on 
the opposite side of the street who is clapping two sticks 
together. The door opens and a woman asks him to enter. 
That man sells dry goods and notions from house to house. 



MORE ABOUT RIO 313 

His sticks are a part of his yard measure and that clapping 
is a sign of his trade. Many of the women do not like to 
go to the stores, preferring to buy their goods of peddlers 
like him. 

And so we go on, now accosted by boys selling papers, 
and now by peddlers with candies and fruit. The strangest 
sights of all are the porters who carry huge loads on their 
heads.. There goes one with a box that must weigh two 
hundred pounds. Behind him is a group of eight negroes 
who are moving along with a huge crate above them. The 
crate contains a piano and they are carrying it on their 
heads from one part of the town to another. 

How many of the people are barefooted ! Most of the 
working classes wear no shoes or stockings, and we see bare- 
footed carpenters and masons going about clad only in hat, 
shirt, and trousers. The common clothing is cotton, for 
Rio is warm. 

Here are some children going to school. Some of them 
carry portfolios and some have bags for their school books. 
The girls are bareheaded and barefooted. Some of the 
boys wear hats or caps. It is only the children of the well- 
to-do who wear shoes. 

We visit the market. It lies on the edge of the harbor 
so that the fish and vegetables can come in by boat. The 
buildings cover six or eight acres, forming a little market 
city which is divided by streets into blocks, each of which 
has its own merchandise. One block may be devoted to 
vegetables and fruits, another to meat, and another to 
butter and cheese. One is taken up by the sellers of live 
animals. Here are cages of dogs, large and small, and pens 
filled with rabbits and guinea pigs. There are also cages 
of monkeys and birds. Some of the monkeys are as big 
as a collie dog and others not so large as a kitten just born. 




314 



MORE ABOUT RIO 315 

The smallest are called marmosets. They are a sort of 
squirrel monkey, and have long tails and tufts of gray hair 
over their ears. We can buy a pair for two dollars. There 
are also screaming parrots and parrakeets and sweet-singing 
birds. 

During our stay in Rio we visit the Monroe Peace Palace 
named after our President Monroe, which stands at one 
end of the great Central Avenue, and then drive out to the 
parks. The parks are everywhere in and about the city, 
and we can tell their locations by the royal palms which 
rise high above the rest of the vegetation, and with quiver- 
ing branches wave us an invitation to enter. We are in 
the tropics and the plants of our hothouses are to be found 
here growing wild. 

We take a street-car and ride for seven miles along the 
bay, by the residences of rich Brazilians, to the botanical 
garden. This has plants and trees from all parts of Brazil. 
It has some of the most wonderful palms of the world. As 
we enter the gate we come into an avenue of palms, each 
as high as an eight-story house, although not more than a 
yard in diameter at the ground. There are more than a 
hundred of these magnificent trees walling the avenue. 
They are symmetrical shafts of silver gray that shoot out 
at the top into a canopy of fernlike green leaves. The 
avenue is not wider than an alley, and we seem to be walking 
between two files of giant soldiers, the plumes on their hats 
quivering in the breeze high above us and almost shutting 
out the blue of the sky. 

Later we make tours over the little railroads which run 
from Rio de Janeiro up into the mountains. They are just 
like the ones we have on Mount Washington and Pikes 
Peak, and one way up the mountains is through wonders of 
tropical scenery. We go over ravines hundreds of feet 



3 i6 SOUTH AMERICA 

deep and crawl about mountain walls more than a thousand 
feet high. Now we seem to cling to the sides of the rock and 
again high walls of rock hang over us and we tremble as 
we think they might fall. 

The air here is moist and at times we are riding through 
clouds. As we go higher we have magnificent views of the 
city and harbor, and on the top of the Corcovado, we stand 
upon a rocky peak amid some of the grandest views of the 
world. 

The great city of Rio and its beautiful harbor are just 
below us but so far down that the houses look no bigger 
than dog kennels, as they lie there skirting the water. The 
sea beyond has become a bed of sapphire under the rays of the 
sun, and upon it are rocky islands of curious shapes, while 
all about rise mountain upon mountain and hill upon hill. 

See those four ocean steamers sailing in single file by 
the "Sugar Loaf" out to the sea. They look like canoes 
at this distance, but they are really great steamers loaded 
with coffee for New York, Liverpool, Havre, and Auckland, 
New Zealand. The last vessel will pass through the Strait 
of Magellan and go almost half around the world before it- 
reaches its haven. 

i. What is the chief business of Santos? Trace a cargo of coffee 
from there to New York ; to Hamburg ; to Naples. 

2. Locate Sao Paulo. For what is it noted ? 

3. What are the chief coffee countries of the world? Of South 
America? (See Table XIV.) From what country do we get 
most of our coffee? Describe a plantation. Tell how the plants 
are grown and the seeds prepared for the market. (See Carpenter's 
"How the World is Fed," chapter 41.) 

4. Mention some wild animals of Brazil. Tell about your visit 
to the city of snakes. Why was it established? 

5. Locate the capital of Brazil. How did it get its name? 
Describe its harbor. Mention one of its chief exports. If you 




An avenue of palms ioo feet high, which are as straight and uni- 
form as telegraph poles, with plumy tops like parasols. 



317 



BAHIA 319 

had your choice of the goods in the market what would you 
take? 

6. Take a motor trip through the city and tell what you see. 

7. What public building of Rio was named after one of our presi- 
dents ? 

8. Trace each of the four steamers mentioned to the port for 
which it is bound. How far is it from Rio de Janeiro to New York ? 
To Liverpool ? 



XLIV. BAHIA 

WE are in Bahia to-day. For three days we have 
sailed north from Rio de Janeiro on our slow 
coasting steamer and have come to anchor in the great 
"Bay of All Saints," under the bluffs on which most 
of the city is built. These bluffs rise for two hundred 
feet almost straight from the water, having only a narrow 
strip of land between them and the sea. Upon this strip 
are the wholesale importing and exporting houses and on 
the bluff are tall, bright-colored buildings shaded by feathery 
palms that quiver in the breeze. The bluff is so abrupt 
that electric elevators have been built to take the people 
from one part of the town to the other, for it is difficult to 
climb the steep roadway up the hills. 

Bahia is almost as large as Seattle, and is the third city 
of Brazil. It has a fine harbor with a beautiful driveway 
along the shore and broad asphalt highways on the bluffs. 
The town is of great commercial importance, having fine 
stores and great factories. It is progressive and is noted 
for its hospitals and schools. 

The bay is one of the best harbors of all South America. 
It has an entrance three miles in width, and the harbor has 
been improved by breakwaters and quays costing many 



320 



SOUTH AMERICA 



millions of dollars. It is equipped with electric cranes and 
all modern landing facilities. The principal imports are 
coal and coke, iron and steel, wheat and flour, dried cod- 
fish, machinery, and cotton goods. The chief exports are 
cacao, tobacco, coffee, rubber, and manganese. 

There are now more than a score of ocean steamers, many 
coasting ships, and hundreds of small boats at anchor in 
the bay. The vessels have swung with the tide and their 
prows are turned toward the city, so that we can easily 
imagine them a great naval fleet coming in to capture Bahia. 
Bahia is one of the oldest South American cities. More 
than half a century before Boston was founded it had fif- 
teen thousand people, and for two hundred years thereafter 
it was the capital of Brazil. It continued to lead until coffee 
began to be raised farther south, when Rio de Janeiro and 
Sao Paulo surpassed it. 

For many years Bahia was the chief center for the slave 
trade of Brazil. It was the port nearest Africa and the 
negroes were kidnaped and carried across the Atlantic 
into this bay. So many were brought that by the year 1800 
more than half the people of Brazil were slaves. That was 
not a long time ago, and as we land upon the wharves we 
notice that there are far more colored people than whites 
in the lower part of the city. Negro women go about 
peddling bananas, or sit upon the streets with piles of fruit 
about them; negro men are loading and unloading the 
steamer, carrying huge bags and bundles on their heads ; 
and in the narrow side streets little black babies, almost as 
naked as when they were born, are crawling over the cobble- 
stones. There is a boy of eight playing horse. He has a 
little stick between his legs and is going on the gallop, al- 
though he has not a stitch of clothing on him. 

Here come three Africans now. Listen to that laugh. 



BAHIA 



321 



It reminds us of the jolly good nature of our dark-skinned 
Americans. Let us stop here on the corner and hear the 
fun as they pass. That man on the left has said something 
funny and his fel- 
lows are shouting 
with laughter. 
Why don't we 
laugh? He is speak- 
ing quite loudly, 
but though we hear 
what he says we 
cannot see the joke. 
He is speaking in 
Portuguese, the 
language used by 
both colored and 
whites in Brazil. 

As we continue 
our travels through 
Brazil, we see that 
the races have in- 
termarried to such 
an extent that it is 
hard to tell who are 
whites and who are 
mulattoes. The 
negroes have equal 
rights with the 
whites. Many of 

them are intelligent and not a few hold important positions. 
There is no such prejudice against the colored man as is 
found in our southern states. We meet negro men and 
women at almost every hotel table, and in the dining 




Negro women go about peddling bananas. 



322 



SOUTH AMERICA 



room of the steamers there are as many colored people at 
the table as whites. 

We stop during our journey around the harbor to buy 
some oranges of an old negro woman. They are navel 
oranges, like some of the finest and sweetest we have from 
California. As we eat them we are reminded that our navel 
oranges came from Bahia in the shape of a little tree that 
was taken from here to the city of Washington, and planted 
in the botanical garden there more than a half century ago. 
From this tree grafts were sent out to California and started 
the first navel orange orchards, the fruit of which now sells 
for many millions of dollars. 

We spend some time in Bahia visiting its cotton and 
tobacco factories. The tobacco is excellent and a great 
deal is exported. In the lower part of the city we see cart- 
loads of hides and bales of goatskins brought from the 
country. They are to be shipped to America to be made 
into shoes. 

In going through the factories We learn that Brazil is 
rapidly developing industries of many kinds. The republic 
is agriculturally and minerally rich and it has almost all 
the raw materials needed for manufacturing. The chief 
trouble is the lack of fuel to make steam. So far, no large 
deposits of coal have been found, but the country has a vast 
amount of water power which will some day be used to gen- 
erate electricity. The great rivers of the eastern highlands 
pour down over the rocks on their way to the ocean, and 
many of them are now fighting cities and towns, running 
street-cars, and supplying the power plants of various 
industries. 

Rio de Janeiro is lighted by a little river in the Organ 
Mountains. Sao Paulo gets its electric power from the 
falls of the Tiete River, and not very far from Bahia are 




We are reminded that our navel oranges come from Bahia. 
323 



324 SOUTH AMERICA 

the falls of the Paulo Affonso (af-fon'soo), which could 
generate two million horse power. The Paulo Affonso falls 
are on the Sao Francisco River, about one hundred and 
fifty miles from its mouth. They are two hundred and 
fifty miles from Bahia, where we now are. The river has 
five branches, which unite above the falls and then take 
a mighty leap over the black rocks of the canon. The 
country surrounding the falls is such that it may one day 
be a great cotton plantation with spinning and weaving 
mills run by this power. 

We have already seen the falls on the Iguassu River in 
southwestern Brazil. 

The Amazon and its tributaries have fourteen large 
waterfalls having enormous electrical possibilities, and 
the same is true of many other rivers of Brazil, the names of 
which hardly are known outside the republic. Altogether, 
there are said to be fifty-one great waterfalls, which are 
capable of producing fifty million horse power, an amount 
equaling the consumption of hundreds of millions of tons 
of coal every year. 

These waterfalls will probably be used to run the rail-, 
ways in the future. Brazil is next to Argentina in the 
length of its railways ; although as yet it has vast terri- 
tories which have no such transportation. The country 
is as large as the United States proper, but we have sixteen 
miles of railway where Brazil has but one. New roads are 
rapidly building, and vast tracts of new land are being 
thrown open to settlement. 

The area of unexplored land is reduced each year by 
rubber hunters, scientists who are studying the plants of 
the Amazon valley, and new settlers. Brazil has en- 
couraged immigration and there are thousands of Spaniards, 
Italians, Portuguese, and Germans in the country. 



THE MINES OF BRAZIL 325 

XLV. THE MINES OF BRAZIL — 
DIAMONDS, IRON, AND GOLD 

A LARGE country like Brazil is sure to have many 
minerals. We appreciated how true this is when 
we visited the government department of Rio de Janeiro 
and talked with the geologists. They told us that more 
than six hundred million dollars' worth of gold had been 
taken out of Brazil prior to 1820 and that one half of this 
came from the one state of Minas Geraes. We saw some 
gold when we were traveling through Matto Grosso, and 
we learn that gold is still washed from the tributaries 
of the Amazon. Brazil has some of the chief iron ore 
beds of the world. Iron is found in every state and 
there are billions of tons in deposits which will some 
day be developed. The best iron mines so far discov- 
ered are in Minas Geraes, the same state from which 
most of the gold has come. They He on the high plateau, 
several hundred miles from the seacoast and at such 
a place that the ore can be sent down to the steamers 
by gravity. 

In the state of Minas Geraes are the largest deposits of 
manganese of the world. Manganese is a metal used to 
mix with copper, iron, and other metals to make them 
stronger and more elastic. We imported a great deal of 
manganese from Brazil during the World War for the mak- 
ing of steel for our arms and munitions. We use it also 
in glass making and smelting. 

Brazil has many precious stones, among the most impor- 
tant of which is the diamond. Until the South African 
diamond mines were discovered, this country was furnishing 
many of the world's finest diamonds. They came from 
Diamantina (dya-man-te'na) , in Minas Geraes, where dia- 



326 SOUTH AMERICA 

mond mining is still carried on. One of the stones was the 
"Star of the South," another the " Green Diamond of 
Dresden," and a third the "Star of Minas." All were fa- 
tuous stones, and each was worth many thousands of dol- 
lars. The diamond regions are far back from the seacoast 
and more than a mile above sea level. The stones are found 
in the gravel of the streams and sometimes in a blue clay 
deposit several feet thick. The South African diamonds 
also are found in blue clay. 

As far back as 1732 thirty thousand men were searching 
for diamonds in Brazil and many million dollars' worth of 
fine stones were found and sent to the markets. At first 
the work was done largely by negro slaves under guard, 
and any slave who found a gem of eighteen carats got his 
freedom. Later, diamonds were found in Matto Grosso 
and at the headwaters of the Paraguassu (pa/ra-gwa-soo') 
River some distance inland from the city of Bahia. 

The diamonds of the latter region lie in the gravel on a 
bed of clay at the bottom of the river. The stream is deep, 
and the mining is usually done where there is not more than 
twenty feet of water and where, owing to a bend in the river, 
the current is no*t strong. 

A long pole is first driven down into the bed of the stream. 
Two miners in a dugout canoe then row out to the pole. 
One man remains in the boat and the other, who is naked, 
dives to the bottom. The diver carries a big bag, the mouth 
of which is held open by an iron hoop. He rests the hoop 
on the river bed and scrapes the gravel into the bag. When 
it is filled he climbs with it up the pole to the boat. He 
goes down again and again for more gravel and when the 
boat is loaded, it is rowed to the shore and its contents carried 
to a pile some distance from the water. The work is con- 
tinued as long as the river is low, the washing of the gravel 



ALONG THE COAST OF BRAZIL 327 

being done in the wet season when the floods-prevent mining. 
At that time the gravel is picked over for carbons and dia- ' 
monds and often many bushels of gravel have to be washed 
before a single stone of value is found. 

The work requires great care and patience, but one little 
stone may give the miners a large reward for a whole season's 
work' When the mines were at their best only about one 
diamond a week was discovered, but the few which were 
found brought in a million dollars a year for many years. 

Almost all the diamonds now being discovered in Brazil 
are small. They are shipped to Europe to be cut for jewelry 
or made into tools to cut glass or polish other hard stones. 

Carbons are black diamonds which are used for fine boring 
machines and for pohshing hard substances. They are 
about as hard as diamonds but more porous. They are 
found in all sizes, from little ones as small as a grain of sand 
to some weighing hundreds of carats. A carat weighs so 
little that it takes one hundred and fifty of them to make 
one ounce troy. It is the measure of weight for precious 
stones and is therefore used for carbons. Not long ago 
carbons were selling for twenty dollars a carat, or so much 
that one large carbon brought twenty thousand dollars. 

XLVI. ALONG THE COAST OF BRAZIL 

OUR travels for the next few weeks are to be along the 
coast of Brazil. We have taken a little Brazilian 
steamer at Bahia for Para, the great port at the mouth 
of the Amazon. The distance looks short on the map, but 
it is more than fifteen hundred miles, and as we shall move 
slowly along from port to port, stopping a day at each 



ALONG THE COAST OF BRAZIL 329 

principal city to load and unload, it will take several 
weeks. 

Our first stop is at Recife (ra-se'fa) or, as it is sometimes 
called, Pernambuco. It is the chief port and capital of 
the state of Pernambuco. The word " Recife" means reef, 
and this is the city of the reef. We see why as we enter the 
harbor, which is formed by a reef or tongue of rock 
that extends from the shore two or three miles out into the 
sea, half inclosing a space about a mile wide and so deep 
that ocean steamers can come in and He safely at anchor. 
The rock extends out like a wall and we can hardly imagine 
that it was not all built by man. It does not rise high above 
the level of the ocean, but its height is sufficient, with the 
addition of the low wall erected upon it, to prevent the waves 
from coming into the bay. As we enter there is a heavy 
wind from the east, and the waves seem to gnash their teeth 
as they throw themselves against this stone wall, sending 
up masses of snow-white foam in their anger. Our ship 
has been rolling about on the ocean. Inside the harbor we 
lie perfectly quiet and there is hardly a ripple, notwith- 
standing the billows outside. 

Recife has spent many million dollars in building jetties 
and breakwaters, and it is now a fine port. It has electric 
cranes to unload merchandise, and almost a thousand 
steamers call here every year. It is the first port at which 
the European steamers stop, after leaving Lisbon. 

The state of Pernambuco is a little larger than New York. 
It produces more cotton and sugar than any other part of 
Brazil, and it has many cotton and sugar mills. The cotton 
plantations are increasing in number and size, and they 
may some day compete with those of our cotton belt. 
There are railways connecting the interior with the coast 
ports. 



33° 



SOUTH AMERICA 



We land and take street cars, being carried over one 
bridge after another. We pass motor trucks loaded with 
cotton, carts pulled by oxen in shafts, and on into the cityi 
Recife has many canals, and its bridges remind us of Venice. 
Some of the buildings are faced with porcelain tiles imported 
from Europe. Its people pride themselves on their enter- 
prise and business ability. 

At Parahyba, still farther north, we have a chance 
during the delay of the steamer to take a railroad ride 
into the interior. The train takes us through groves 
of coconut palms and by plantations of cotton and sugar. 
The vegetation is dense in many places and we see strange 
birds and animals in the trees. The parrots screech at us, 
and the marmosets, so small that we could easily carry one 
in a pocket, scamper about through the branches. 

Farther back from the coast are the highlands of Brazil, 
and a little, farther north in the state of Ceara (sa-a-ra/) , at 
the port of which we next stop, the country is almost all 
high. It is a rolling land as big as Ohio, with mountain 
chains running through it. 

This part of the Brazilian highlands is often subject to 
droughts. When there is plenty of rain the crops are rich 
and everything is green and fresh, but during a long dry 
spell everything is as bare as the desert of Sahara. Such 
times do not often occur, but when they do many of the 
people starve, and in the drought of 1877 and 1878 more 
than half the entire population died of famine. 

The port of Ceara has one of the worst landing places on 
the east coast of South America. There is no pier, and 
we are carried from our ship to the shore in the arms 
of half -naked men, who charge us each eight cents a 
trip. The waves are rolling in on the beach as we go 
along suspended only a few inches above the water, and 



ALONG THE COAST OF BRAZIL 331 

we tremble at what might happen if our bearers should slip 
on a stone. 

Ceara is a beautiful city of seventy thousand or more. 
It has bright-colored houses, clean streets, and well-dressed 
people. We visit the market to learn what is raised in the 
country. We then take donkeys and ride through the city, 
with time for a jaunt in the suburbs. 

The street scenes are interesting and every turn brings a 
new picture. We pass men and women carrying all kinds 
of things on their heads. There is a barefooted negress 
walking briskly along with a pumpkin so delicately balanced 
on her head that it does not roll off, and behind comes a 
boy carrying a two-bushel bag of flour the same way. He 
has stopped there at that fence and without lowering his 
head or touching his burden has lifted his leg to the first 
board. He seems to. be searching for something that is 
biting him. 

Here comes a water peddler driving a donkey, to the sides 
of which are slung four five-gallon casks. Behind him is 
a man with two horses, each of which carries a load of wood. 
The wood is fastened to the sides of the horses by wooden 
hooks made of forked limbs tied on like a pack saddle. 

Now we have left the city and are out in the country. 
We ride by banana fields, orange trees, and palm groves ; 
also fields of cotton and sugar cane. There is one palm 
growing wild in Ceara that produces more things, perhaps, 
than any other tree in the world. This is the carnauba 
(kar-nou'ba) palm. Its trunk is used for rafters and build- 
ing material, and from its roots a medicine is made. When 
young, it is eaten as a vegetable, and from it wine and 
vinegar are made, as well as a starch like sago. The fruit 
is a good food for cattle, the pulp having an agreeable taste, 
and the nut is used as a substitute for coffee. The pith of 



332 SOUTH AMERICA 

the carnauba is as light as cork, and musical instruments 
are made of the stem. When tapped, the tree gives forth 
a white liquid much like coconut milk. Hats, brooms, 
and baskets are made of the strawlike bark on its trunk, 
and the bark is used also for thatching houses. From the 
leaves a wax is obtained that is manufactured into candles 
which are extensively used in the states of northern Brazil. 
Ceara produces as much as two million pounds of this wax 
in a year. 

Ceara is noted also for its parrots, which are famous as 
talkers. They are of a beautiful green and blue color with 
a bit of red on the wings and neck, and they are smaller 
than most other parrots. We see some in the markets. 
The price is only two dollars per bird, but alas ! the parrots 
speak Portuguese, and before we could enjoy them they 
would have to be taught a new language. We take several 
with us on the steamer, however, and amuse ourselves dur- 
ing the rest of the journey by giving them lessons in our 
own American tongue. We are now only a little south of 
the equator and the weather is hot, although the sea breeze 
makes us quite comfortable. We sail on for a day or so, 
moving northwestward, and come to anchor at last at the 
city of Para in one of the mouths of the Amazon. 

i. Describe Bahia. Compare it in size with Rio de Janeiro; 
with Para ; with Pernambuco. Why was Bahia the chief port for the 
slave trade ? Mention its principal industries. What fruit did it 
give California? 

2. Locate the Sao Francisco River and the Paulo Affonso falls. 
Why are the water powers of Brazil very important ? 

3. What minerals are found in Brazil? Locate Minas Geraes. 
What is manganese ? What country of Europe has great supplies 
of this ore? (See Carpenter's " Europe.") 

4. Where are the richest diamond fields of Brazil ? Of the world? 
How are the diamonds mined? Compare diamond mining in Brazil 



THE KING OF RIVERS - 333 

with that in Africa. Find out all you can about these precious 
stones. (See Carpenter's "Africa," and Carpenter's "How the 
World is Clothed," chapters 37 and 38.) 

5. Describe the harbor of Pernambuco. Why is the town called 

Rpcife ? 

6. What crop of this region may some day compete with an im- 
portant product of our southern states? - • 

7. From what Brazilian tree are candles made? Make a list of 
other useful things that come from this tree. 



*•*« 



XLVII. THE KING OF RIVERS 

BEFORE we begin our travels up the Amazon let us 
consider the wonderful region into which we are 
going The Amazon is the king of rivers and flows through 
the greatest valley of the world. The basin it drains is two 
thirds as large as the United States. The headwaters of 
the river are gathered from a curve of the Andes two thou- 
sand miles long. The basin is as wide as the distance from 
New York to Salt Lake City. The divide on the north 
is the highland of Guiana. On the south it is separated 
from the basin of the Parana by a gentle rise in the plain. 
At its back are the great Andes, and from the foot of these 
mountains the basin slopes downward to the sea so gradually 
that in this long distance of about two thousand miles, the 
fall is only two hundred feet. This is so little that if the 
Amazon valley were free from trees and we were riding over 
it in a wagon it would appear to be a level plain. The fall 
is only a little more than an inch to the mile, and for several 
hundred miles from its mouth much less than that We 
might take ship on the Amazon and travel up rt farther 
than from the Atlantic to the head of Lake Superior, and 




334 



THE KING OF RIVERS 335 

we would then be not over forty feet higher than when we 
started. 

The fall is so gentle that you would hardly think the water 
would flow, but it does in such a mighty volume that it 
carries with it vast quantities of the earth washings of the 
mountains. Millions of huge motor trucks working day 
and night could not haul down the mud that it is daily 
carrying into the Atlantic. 

There is so much of this mud that it makes the ocean 
yellow for one hundred miles out from the shore, and for 
a day before we arrive at Para we are sailing through water 
almost as thick as pea soup. Indeed, bits of tree trunks 
and vegetation from the Andes are often seen floating four 
hundred miles from the coast ; they have traveled from 
their homes in the mountains as far as the distance across 
our continent. Is not this a wonderful river? What can 
be the cause of such a great volume of water that keeps on 
flowing day and night, year in and year out, from one life- 
time to another? 

Now let us see whence this perpetual flow of fresh water 
comes. It is brought here by the constant trade winds 
that start from the shores of Africa, and as they cross the 
Atlantic are filled with moisture. When they reach Brazil 
they are loaded with water, and as they rise and cool in 
their journey to the mountains, up the wide trough of the 
Amazon valley, they drop this as rain. They drop more 
and more as they go on to the westward, and the water 
falling over this vast surface is carried by countless streams 
into the channel of the Amazon River. So much water 
falls that the Amazon valley is one of the rainiest regions 
of the world. There is so much rain, indeed, that if the 
mouth of the river could be held back by a great dam, like 
that at Gatun, a vast sea would soon be formed. It 



336 SOUTH AMERICA 

is estimated that so much rain falls in a single year that, 
if it remained where it fell, the valley would be covered with 
water to a depth of eighty inches, which is greater than the 
height of the tallest man. 

As we stand on the deck of the steamer we observe that 
the air is full of moisture. Para has a heavy rain almost 
every afternoon and its people make their appointments to 
call after the daily shower. We shall find the air moist 
all the way to the Andes, and we must wipe off our knives, 
cameras, and guns every day to keep them from rusting. 
The air is so wet that a gun loaded overnight will not go 
off in the morning. 

Fortunately for us, the great river is now at its lowest 
stage. For almost two thousand miles from the sea it is 
from two to five miles in width. During the rainy seasons 
of November and February it slowly rises to from thirty 
to fifty feet above its present level. It then floods much of 
the valley and thousands of square miles are covered with 
water. The river flows in and out among the treetops, and 
for hundreds of miles back from the ocean, the valley is a 
great inland sea from fifteen to one hundred miles wide. 
In the dry times there may be seen vast stretches of meadows, 
where the water lies so long upon the land that trees will 
not grow. The pasture fields of the Amazon are the result. 
Most of the valley, however, is a forest, in which there are 
no paths and through which we can go only in boats. There 
are so many streams that most parts of the forest can be 
reached by them. The Amazon in its long course receives 
more than one hundred rivers, into which flow myriads of 
smaller streams. Of its rivers, eight have a navigable 
length of more than one thousand miles each. On the Rio 
Negro one can go to the north until he is very near the 
headwaters of the Orinoco — so near that he could carry 



PARA, THE METROPOLIS OF THE AMAZON 337 

his boat to them and float down to the Atlantic Ocean. 
On the south he could go up the Tapajos (ta-pa-zhosh') 
so far that by a short trip he could drag his canoe into 
the tributaries of the Paraguay and Parana, and paddle 
down to Buenos Aires or Montevideo. 

The Amazon system is the greatest river system of the 
globe, and the river itself will surprise us more and more 
as we travel upon it. We are now at the port of 
Para. We shall go in a big ocean steamer to Manaos, 
another port a thousand miles up the river, and we may 
there take smaller steamers for the port of Iquitos, Peru, 
which is more than twenty-three hundred miles from the 
ocean. 

XLVIII. PARA, THE METROPOLIS OF 
THE AMAZON 

BEFORE we start on our tour up the Amazon we must 
explore the city of Para. It lies in front of us 
back of the masts of those sailing vessels and steamers 
lining the shore. There is a row of tall palms between it 
and the river. They rise high above that line of bright- 
colored houses and their quivering branches are swaying 
in the wind from the sea. The land is so low that we can 
see but little of Para from the steamer. The city runs far 
back from the water. It is about as large as Denver, and 
is the seaport of the Amazon valley. 

Some of the ships among which we are moving have come 
from far up the river. There is a side- wheel steamer loaded 
with manioc and cacao from the Madeira ( ma-de'e-ra) . It 
has come more than a thousand miles to Para. That ship 
beside it with the canvas over its deck under wjiich people are 



PARA, THE METROPOLIS OF THE AMAZON 339 

lying in hammocks is about to start up the Tocantins (to- 
kan-tenz') River, and the vessel beyond is filled with rubber 
loaded almost in the foothills of the Andes and floated down 
from the wilds of Boh via. The steamer over there with 
the English flag at its mast is leaving for Liverpool. It has 
Brazil wood, rubber, and nuts as a part of its cargo. The 
vessel beside it with the dense smoke pouring from its funnel 
is a Portuguese ship carrying cacao. It is starting for Lis- 
bon. Farther over is a cargo steamer just in from New 
York; it has brought cotton goods, kerosene, hardware, 
pine lumber, and codfish to be sold in Para, and will carry 
back boxes of rubber to be used in our factories. 

What a busy stream is this through which we steam as 
we go to the docks. We pass hundreds of sailboats filled 
with vegetables and fruit, and countless dugouts being 
paddled swiftly 'along toward the shore. Now we are at 
the landing and the cargadores begin to load and unload 
our steamer. Other steamers are being unloaded by elec- 
tric cranes, the goods being transferred directly from the 
ships to the railway cars. There are huge warehouses in 
the rear, and we begin to realize the vast trade of the port. 
All goods that go in and out of the Amazon valley must go 
through Para. Several thousand ships call here every 
year and the trade amounts to tens of millions of dollars. 
We take automobiles and ride through Para, going slowly 
through the residence and business sections and frequently 
stopping to ask about things of interest. In the oldest 
streets the buildings are close to the sidewalks. Their walls 
are of all colors and some of the houses are faced with porce- 
lain tiles of blue, yellow, or green. The stores open on the 
street, and in front of some of them the goods are piled on 
the pavements. 

There are numerous hammocks of all grades and prices. 



340 SOUTH AMERICA 

some mere strips of canvas and others lace work of fine 
thread. Hammocks are the beds of the Amazon valley. 
They are cooler than mattresses. We may each buy one 
before we go up the river. Every Amazon boat has places 
in which hammocks can be swung, and when we go into the 
woods we can tie them to the branches of trees. Moreover, 
the hammocks are safer than ordinary beds, for bugs, ants, 
and snakes cannot hide in them. 

Leaving the business section, we stop at the cathedral, 
which was erected in 1710, and go to the government palace, 
which was built about the time our Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was signed. We visit the city museum, situated 
in a grove of rubber trees, and are shown an experimental 
garden near by in which is every species of rubber plant 
known. 

On our way back to the wharf we stop at a park by the 
river where fruit, vegetables, and merchandise are brought 
in small boats from the neighboring islands. Here the 
scene is a bright one. Scores of gayly dressed negro 
women are peddling all sorts of things and both women 
and men are trotting about with burdens on their heads. 
The buyers are of all classes. Many of them are purchasing 
fish, fruit, and vegetables for their household supplies. A 
crowd has gathered around a boat filled with baskets, which 
the people are buying and carrying off on their heads. 
The baskets are full of a coarse meal that looks like ground 
popcorn. We take a pinch out of one and find that it tastes 
much like sawdust. It is manioc flour, an article which 
forms the food of a great part of Brazil. Manioc is cheap 
and nutritious, and quantities of it are shipped to the United 
States. It is a root from which comes the tapioca we use in 
puddings and soups. The fruits remind us of Ecuador and 
show us that we are again in one of the lands of the equator. 



PARA, THE METROPOLIS OF THE AMAZON 341 



We buy delicious pineapples for a few cents apiece, and the 
bananas and oranges almost melt in our mouths. We buy 
a green coconut and slice off the top, drinking the cool 
milk from the shell. 
There are quantities 
of black tobacco in 
long twists, some as 
big around as a 
baseball bat, and 
peddlers bring us 
parrots and mon- 
keys and ask us to 
buy. 

About the market 
are many vultures. 
They sit on the 
roofs of the court 
ready to swoop down 
and eat the scraps 
of meat thrown 
away by the butchers. Vultures are the scavengers of the 
Amazon. They are never killed by the people and hence 
are quite tame. Indeed, if they were not so disgusting we 
might easily catch them and pet them. 

But what is that on the head of the man going out of the 
door of the market house ? It is as big around as a wash tub 
and about a foot thick. See, it is alive ! It is poking its 
head in and out of its shell as he carries it off. That is one 
of the big turtles of the Amazon. They are found near 
Para and in most parts of the Amazon basin. They have 
their breeding places where they go in countless numbers 
at certain times of the year. They dig holes in the sand 
and lay their eggs there. The eggs are about as big as hens' 




Vulture. 




342 



IN THE LAND OF RUBBER 343 

eggs ; they have a leathery skin instead of a shell. Each 
turtle lays about one hundred and twenty, and millions 
upon millions of eggs are deposited in these laying places. 



>X*Jc 



XLIX. IN THE LAND OF RUBBER 

OUR travels during the next few days will be devoted 
to the rubber industry of the Amazon valley. Para 
is one of the chief rubber ports of the world and in its 
warehouses we can see how rubber is packed for the mar- 
kets. There are many rubber trees on the islands near 
the mouth of the Amazon. These islands can be reached 
by steam launch, and we arrange to visit a rubber plantation. 

But first let us learn something about this wonderful 
product. Rubber was not known until after the discovery 
of America. We hear of it first at the time of the second 
voyage of Columbus, when he found the natives of some 
of the West Indies playing with rubber balls. It was 
Priestley, the chemist, who in 1770 first showed that rubber 
would erase pencil marks. 

Rubber was first brought to the United States in the 
year 1800, and about fifty years later a Boston sea captain 
returned from Brazil with five hundred pairs of rubber ^ 
boots made by the natives. They were sold for three dollars ' 
and upwards a pair, but it was not until many years later, 
after Charles Goodyear had discovered how to vulcanize 
rubber, that waterproof boots and shoes came into use. 

To-day rubber is one of the most important of all the 
raw materials used by man. It keeps us dry in wet weather. 
It cushions the wheels on which we ride in bicycles, motor- 
cycles, and automobiles ; and most of our heavy hauling 



344 SOUTH AMERICA 

in cities is done by trucks whose tires are of solid rubber. 
It is used in making airplanes, the wheels upon which they 
start and land being of rubber. We wade through the water 
in rubber boots, and race horses are shod with rubber shoes. 
Rubber in one form or another is employed in many kinds 
of machinery. It is found in some of the buttons with 
which we fasten our clothes and the suspenders and garters 
which hold up our trousers and stockings. During one 
year the public school children of New York City used more 
than ten thousand pounds of rubber ink erasers, and millions 
of elastic bands are annually consumed in our business cities. 
There are so many uses for rubber that great factories have 
grown up to make goods of this material, and we have one 
large city, Akron, Ohio, which makes more rubber goods 
than anything else. 

For a long time almost all the rubber used by man came 
from the wild trees of the Amazon valley ,. although some 
rubber was gathered from the tropical forests of Africa and 
other parts of the world. About 1900 they began to plant 
rubber trees and cultivate them in Ceylon and on the Malay 
peninsula, and now by far the greater part of the rubber of 
commerce comes from there. In 1919 the United States 
imported almost five hundred million pounds of crude 
rubber, and about four fifths of that amount was produced 
on the rubber plantations of Ceylon and Malaysia. During 
that year we bought less than sixty million pounds from 
Brazil. Nevertheless, it is said that the very best of rubber 
is that from the forests of the Amazon basin. 

Rubber is made from the latex or milky juice in the bark 
of the siphonia elastica, a wild tree found scattered through 
the forests of the Amazon basin. The rubber district is as 
large as the United States east of the Mississippi River. It 
includes parts of Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia, extending from 



■■■'.-.:■. 









' - JP 



A rubber tree. The bark is scored to drain the sap. The native 

holds a string of dried latex. 

345" 



346 SOUTH AMERICA 

the mouth of the Amazon westward to the foothills of the 
Andes, and on south to the headwaters of the Parana River. 

The rubber tree nourishes best in land that is flooded 
part of the year. Ground that is always above water will 
not do for it. The best conditions are found in the lands 
south of the Amazon and on the islands and lowlands not 
far from its mouth. Here a tree requires from fifteen to 
twenty years' growth before it will produce enough rubber 
to pay for tapping it. Most of the trees we shall see are 
older than that and some of them have been producing 
rubber for years. They bear a fruit consisting of a shell, 
inside which are three little nuts. When the fruit is ripe 
the shell bursts with a noise like a fire-cracker and throws 
the nuts to some distance. So many nuts come from each 
tree that it is said a man could easily gather enough in 
one day to plant a hundred acres of land. When planted 
these seeds grow rapidly. They must be shaded from the 
direct rays of the sun and must have plenty of moisture. 
After a time they can be transplanted, and if the soil and 
climatic conditions are right they will thrive without culti- 
vation. 

But we shall see these trees better by visiting one of the 
islands where they grow wild in the forest. We take a 
steam launch and ride all night on the Amazon. How 
bright the stars are and how the moon shines here in the 
soft air of the tropics ! Our hammocks are slung from the 
roof of the boat, and as we lie in them the warm wind from 
the ocean fans us to sleep. We spend hours passing through 
one narrow channel after another and in the morning find 
ourselves at anchor before the house of a rubber planter. 
A little wharf extends from his front door to the river and 
we step out of the boat within a few yards of the house. 
It is a low, one-story building roofed with red tiles with a 



IN THE LAND OF RUBBER 347 

wide veranda about it. At one end is a store-room filled 
with groceries and dry goods, which the planter sells to his 
rubber gatherers, and on the veranda itself are piles of what 
look like smoked hams but are really lumps of rubber ready 
for market. The planter gives us a breakfast of coffee and 
rolls, after which we walk with him through the dense forest, 
winding this way and that from one rubber tree to another. 

How interesting it is and how different from what we 
imagined! We have heard of rubber groves and rubber 
forests. There is no such thing in nature. The trees are 
widely scattered. They are so far apart that each man has 
to walk several miles in gathering the saplike juice for one 
day. He has his own trees to attend, and they may range 
from sixty to one hundred and fifty in number, according 
to the distance between them. The trees assigned m'm are 
called a path or road. The size of a rubber plantation is 
estimated by the number of roads it contains. The roads 
are mere footpaths from one rubber tree to another. 

We are winding our way along such a path now. Let 
us stop at one of the trees and look at it. It is not at all 
like the rubber plants we have in our hothouses. They* 
have lean stems and thick leaves of polished green. This 
rubber tree has a trunk as big around as your waist. It is 
a great forest tree with leaves somewhat like those of the 
English ash. 

How smooth the bark is ! It is of a whitish gray, and 
at a distance of twelve feet above the ground it shines almost 
like silver. Farther down it is scarred, black, and warty, 
with streaks of yellow matter that looks much like beeswax 
here and there in the bark. Take out your knife and dig 
up a bit of the wax so that you can catch hold of it. Now 
pull at it. It will stretch from six to twelve inches from 
the tree before it comes off. This is coarse rubber, the 



348 



SOUTH AMERICA 



remains of the juice or latex that has dried on the tree. 
It will all be pulled out and saved, although it will be sold 
at a much lower price than the better varieties that we shall 
see made later on. 

But here comes the rubber gatherer to tap the tree for 
the day. -He has a little tomahawk, or hatchet, the blade 




Collecting rubber. Mr. Carpenter at the left. 



of which is just about an inch wide, and a lot of tin cups the 
size of egg cups. With the hatchet he makes a gash in the 
bark just deep enough to go through without cutting the 
wood. As he pulls back the hatchet a white fluid begins to 
ooze out. It is just like milk and makes us think of the juice 
of the milkweed. The fluid comes out in drops and the 
man takes one of the little tin cups and fastens it into the 
bark just under the wound so that the milk drops down into 



IN THE LAND OF RUBBER 



349 



the cup. He now makes two or three other gashes in the 
tree, fitting each gash with its cup, and then goes on to the 
next. He continues his work until every tree in his path 
has been tapped. 




The fine rubber is cured by smoking. 



The proprietor shows us how slowly the milk runs and says 
that only a few tablespoonfuls can be gathered from each 
wound in a day. It flows best in the morning and about 
noon the rubber man comes back to gather the milk in a 
gourd or bucket. The amount collected varies according to 
the richness of the trees, but if a man can get two quarts of 
milk in one day from his path he thinks he has done very well. 



3 5 o SOUTH AMERICA 

The next process is to turn the milk into the rubber of 
commerce. This is important. Upon exposure to the 
air the milk coagulates, or becomes hard, and if not properly 
treated turns to coarse rubber, which brings only low prices. 
The fine rubber is cured by smoking, the best coming from 
milk smoked only a few hours after it is gathered. Our 











it. . 


> 

f 








' 1 


I 





Sheets of plantation rubber ready for shipment. Such rubber comes 
only from Ceylon and Malaysia. 

planter makes fine rubber and he sees that his men cure it 
as soon as they return from the forest. 

There goes a man now with a bucket containing two 
quarts of the liquid rubber that he has just brought from 
the trees. Let us follow him and see the process of curing. 
We go with him to an open shed and watch him pour the 
milk into a bowl as large as those we use in mixing bread. 
See how white the juice is ! It tastes sweet and is so thin 
that one could easily drink it. 



A TRIP ON THE AMAZON RIVER 351 

Now the man stoops and builds a fire of palm nuts in one 
corner of the hut under a clay chimney raised a little from 
the floor. The chimney is so short that its top does not 
reach to our waists. See how the nuts burn and watch 
that dense smoke which pours out through the chimney. 

But look ! The man has taken a long paddle and thrust 
the end of it into the milk. It comes out as white as snow. 
The milk has stuck to the paddle. He now thrusts the end 
of the paddle into the smoke, twisting it rapidly as he does 
so, so that no drop of the precious juice may fall into the 
fire. 

As the smoke touches it the rubber thickens and hardens, 
and its white is streaked with brown by the smoke. It 
has soon coated the paddle like varnish. The paddle is 
again thrust into the milk bowl, and when it comes out there 
is a fresh coat of rubber on it ready for smoking. This is 
hardened in the same way and the work goes on until a 
mass of rubber as large as a small ham is built up on the 
end of the paddle. Now the man takes a knife and makes 
a cut in one side. He pulls off the rubber and carries it 
to the house, where it is piled up with other lumps for ship- 
ment to factories all over the world. 



&n< 



L. A TRIP ON THE AMAZON RIVER 

OUR next journey is to be up the Amazon. We shall 
travel for weeks upon the great river, but we might 
spend years and not see it all. We could go farther 
than the distance around the world in exploring its tribu- 
taries. Indeed, some of them are practically unknown. 
In 1914 Theodore Roosevelt came up the Paraguay River 



A TRIP ON THE AMAZON RIVER 353 

to Matto Grosso and started down a small stream which 
grew larger and larger as he traveled upon it until at last, 
after a voyage of nine hundred and thirty miles, it took him 
into the Madeira River, through which he went on to the 
Amazon. This stream was named Rio Teodoro (ta-o-do'roo) 
in President Roosevelt's honor. 

Lying in our hammocks on the deck of the steamer, we 
enjoy the scenery as we move up the mighty Amazon, 
floating for miles in and out between walls of forest trees 
a hundred feet high. Now we are close to one bank and 
now near the dense vegetation of the opposite side. At times 
we go for hours in midstream where the Amazon is so wide 
that the forests make two faint lines of blue on our right and 
our left. Now we steam between islands so near the land 
that we can see into the huts of the rubber gatherers and 
others who have made their rude homes on the banks. 

We are passing one on the right. It is not more than 
fifteen feet square. It is thatched with palm leaves and 
has holes in the walls for windows. There is a shed at one 
side, and inside this are two hammocks, in each of which 
a woman is lying. We see other huts farther on. Each 
has its boats tied to the shore. The owners rush to the 
banks and pull up the boats at the approach of our steamer. 
Sometimes they jump into them and row out from the land 
to prevent the waves made by the ship from overturning 
their boats or filling them with water. Most of the boats 
are dugouts, although at the larger houses there arerowboats, 
some of which are painted in bright colors. It is only by 
boat that the people can go from one place to another. 
There are no highways through these dense forests of the 
Amazon. 

We have often heard of the tropical forest. We find it 
far different from what we supposed. It is not a great mass 



354 SOUTH AMERICA 

of palms, although there are palms here and there in it. 
Most of it is made up of giant forest trees, some of which 
are not unlike the big trees of the temperate zone. As we 
steam on a mile or so* from the shore it looks just like our 
forests at home. When we get closer, however, we see here 
and there the broad leaves of the palms and other tropical 
trees. 

There are hundreds of feathery creepers, air-plants, which 
hang like strands of green silk from the branches. There 
is a dead limb clothed with orchids. Farther over is a great 
round mass of blue flowers rising out of the green. That 
is a tree in blossom, and if you look to the right you may 
see huge bunches of white, yellow, and purple, the flowers 
of other forest trees that grow only along the Amazon. 
There are trees here as tall as the tallest trees of our forests, 
each of whose tops forms a bouquet of violet blue as big 
as a haystack. Surrounded by green, they- rise a hundred 
feet above us. There are stacks of flowers as yellow as 
buttercups high in the air, and we now and then see trees 
loaded with flowers much like tiger lilies, only they have a 
tinge of red mixed with their yellow and black, making 
them more beautiful. 

Close to the shore in many places the trees rise like a wall 
from the water. Many of them are a hundred feet high, 
and the creepers and vines that crawl up their trunks and 
wind this way and that in a tangled mass are so thick that 
it is almost impossible to cut one's way through. Most of 
the trees have a whitish-gray bark, and some of the trunks 
are so twisted and ribbed that they look like cables of white 
taffy braided together to support the vast mass of foliage 
above them. 

One of the noblest trees of all rises far above the others. 
This is the tree which produces the Brazil nut. It grows 



A TRIP ON THE AMAZON RIVER 355 

to a height of one hundred and fifty feet, with magnificent 
foliage of dark green leaves. Its fruit is the shape of our 
black walnut, save that it is bigger around than the biggest 
baseball. It has an outer skin like a walnut and a similar 
hard shell within. Inside the hard shell are the long, three- 
cornered Brazil nuts that are sold in the stores. There are 
often twenty nuts in one shell. The nuts are gathered and 
carried in boats to Para, where the shells are broken and 
the Brazil nuts of commerce are taken out. The nuts are 
quite heavy, and we tremble as we walk under the trees 
for fear some may drop on our heads. We hear monkeys 
chattering in the branches and fear they may throw the 
nuts at us from the tops of the trees. 

At the town of Obidos (o-be'dos), five hundred miles 
from the Atlantic, the channel of the Amazon narrows and 
the immense volume of water pours through an opening 
about a mile wide. The current here is so strong that our 
steamer dares not rely on its anchor alone, but has also a 
cable by which it is tied to a tree on the bank. We wait 
for some hours and during our stay are taken in canoes to 
the shore. The town is a collection of rude houses built 
along three or four narrow streets. Obidos has a factory 
for making chocolate, and we learn that there are many 
cacao plantations near by. We see more cacao trees as we 
sail on our way up the river. The orchards line the south 
bank of the Amazon for miles. 

Some distance above Obidos we pass the mouth of the 
Madeira, and soon after come to a place where the waters 
of the Rio Negro ■ (na/gro) join those of the Amazon. The 
Rio Negro is as black as ink and the Amazon as yellow as 
mud. The Rio Negro keeps its color for a longdistance after 
it reaches the Amazon before it is swallowed up by that 
great yellow monster. We ride along in our steamer on the 



356 SOUTH AMERICA 

line* where the two colors join, seeing the black on one side 
of the ship and the yellow on the other, but soon turn to 
the right and sail for an hour up the wide Rio Negro, to the 
city of Manaos, the rubber metropolis of the central 
Amazon valley. 

Manaos lies on the river bank high above the water. Its 
wide streets are lined with palm trees and its bright houses 
shine under the tropical sun. It is a large city for this part 
of the world, having about half as many people as Para. It 
is at the junction of many navigable waterways ; therefore 
it is the best place for the trade of this region and must con- 
tinue to grow. We are surprised to fine good houses and 
modern improvements here in the heart of the wilds. Ma- 
naos has electric street-cars, electric lights, and good schools. 
It has one of the finest theaters of Brazil, a market, a mu- 
seum, and some large stores. To it come steamers from 
all parts of the Amazon valley. The largest ocean steamers 
from the United States and Europe can come from the ocean 
right up to Manaos. The Rio Negro at this point is two 
miles in width and more than one hundred feet deep at low 
water. 

The port has good landing arrangements, notwithstanding 
that there is a difference of forty or fifty feet in the height 
of the river between the wet and the dry seasons. From 
December to May the largest ocean steamers can come to 
the quay, but when the river is low a mud bank three hun- 
dred feet wide extends out from it. For this reason a lower 
quay has been built. This is under water at the flood 
season. There are also floating docks which are used during 
that season. 

The rubber gatherers bring quantities of rubber to Ma- 
naos from the vast regions west and south of it, and they 
come by the hundreds for their supplies, often trading rubber 



SOME WILD INDIANS OF BRAZIL 357 

for goods. It is from here that expeditions start out to ex- 
plore the wilds of the Amazon and its tributaries, and we 
can find boats and men here who will go with us to almost 
any part of this little known region. 



:>>*;c 



LI. SOME WILD INDIANS OF BRAZIL 

THERE are many wild Indians scattered here and there 
throughout the Amazon basin, and also some more 
or less civilized, who are engaged by the white men 
in the gathering of rubber. We often think of our conti- 
nent as the chief home of the red race, and of the United 
States as the country where most of the Indians lived be- 
fore the white men came. The truth is, South America had 
more Indians than North America, and it is estimated that 
there are now four or five times as many Indians in Brazil 
as in the United States. In Matto Grosso are the Tupi- 
Guaranis (too'pe gwa-ra'nes) , much like the redskins we saw 
in Paraguay. They are a mild people, good-looking and 
intelligent. The Jesuit Fathers have christianized many of 
them and books have been printed in their language. 
Indeed, Tupi-Guarani is now understood in most parts 
of central South America. 

In the wilder parts of Sao Paulo and in other parts 
of southern and western Brazil five the Botocudos 
(bo-to-kdb'doz), who are as degraded as the Indians we saw 
about the Strait of Magellan. They have huts in the woods, 
and they feed largely on nuts and roots and what they can 
kill. Most of them are of less than medium height. Their 
hair is black, and their skins are yellowish-brown, rather 
than red. 



358 



SOUTH AMERICA 



Many of the Botocudos still wear great plugs of wood, 
bone, or stone in their lips and ear lobes. Some of these 
plugs are as big around as a pint cup and others as large as 
a napkin ring. Think of making a hole in your lip or ear 
lobe so large that a glass tumbler could be carried in it ! 
We have photographs of these Indians showing that this 
is actually done, and we learn that such decorations are 




The Botocudos wear plugs in their lips and ear lobes. These plugs 
are as large around as a napkin ring. 

thought to be beautiful. When a girl is eight years old a 
small hole is made in her lower lip with the hard point of a 
stick, and a little plug is put in to keep the hole open. As 
the sore heals a larger plug is inserted, and as time goes on 
larger and larger plugs are used, the flesh growing and 
stretching around them until the lip becomes a mere strip 
of skin. The holes in the ears are made in the same way. 
This custom is now dying out, but it is still kept up in some 
of the tribes of the wilds. In northern Brazil are found 



SOME WILD INDIANS OF BRAZIL 



359 



the Caribs and the Arawaks, whose forefathers emigrated 
to the West Indies and were found there by the Spaniards. 
They were brave, and they fought against the white invaders 
of their territory. The Caribs were said to have been canni- 




Amazon Indians equipped with blow guns through which they shoot 
poisoned arrows. 

bals. The Arawaks are not so strong as the Caribs, but 
they are much more civilized. They weave cloth of various 
kinds and make some things of gold. 

Other tribes along the Amazon River have blow guns, 
through which they shoot arrows tipped with poison. The 



360 SOUTH AMERICA 

blow guns are pipes about an inch in diameter and ten to 
twelve feet in length. They are made of a hard wood which 
is split and then hollowed out. After the parts are glued 
together and wrapped with rattan they are perfectly air- 
tight. The arrows are as thick as a hatpin and about a 
foot long. They are as sharp as a needle, the blunt end 
being wrapped with cotton so that it fits the hole in the 
blow gun. The arrow, having been dipped in poison, is 
blown out of the pipe with such force that it flies to a dis- 
tance of from fifty to one hundred feet. The poison is so 
venomous that a scratch will cause .death. 

Along the river Tapajos, the mouth of which we 
passed on our way up to Manaos, live the Mundurucos 
(moon-doo-rob'kuz) , who cut off the heads of their enemies 
and preserve them as trophies. They cure them in such 
a way that all the features are preserved as in life. They 
do not squeeze the heads in and make them' smaller as do 
the Indians at some of the headwaters of the Amazon in 
Ecuador. There are many of these heads thus preserved 
shown in the museums of Brazil. They have eyes of black 
gum surrounded by bone to represent the whites, and the 
mouths are closed with black rubber. 

During our stay at Manaos we are told that the govern- 
ment of Brazil has many plans to civilize its Indians. It 
has placed some of the tribes on reservations and has given 
lands to the members of other tribes. It is starting schools 
and experimental farms in many of the states and doing 
what it can to pacify the wild tribes and make them civilized 
people. 

We spend several days at Manaos talking with the ex- 
plorers and others from many parts of the Amazon basin 
and planning our tour for the future. We find that we 
could take a good steamer and sail on the Amazon more 




These men are head hunters of the upper Amazon. 
361 



362 



SOUTH AMERICA 



than thirteen hundred miles farther west to Iquitos in Peru 
and there find trails by which we could walk over the Andes 
to the west coast. Or we could steam up the Madeira 
River and by the Madeira-Mamore (ma-mo-ra/) railway 
go around the great falls and thence on up into the Beni River, 




Home on the banks of the Rio Negro. The house is thatched with 
grass. Shredded palm leaves are sometimes used. 



by which we could reach trails to La Paz and Lake Titicaca. 
The Madeira-Mamore railway is about two hundred miles 
long. It was built by men from the United States to take 
passengers and freight around the falls, and it enables the 
rubber of Matto Grosso and Bolivia to be brought down the 
Amazon to Manaos and Para. 



SOME WILD INDIANS OF BRAZIL 363 

We decide, however, to make our way northward into 
Venezuela, and we continue our journey up the Rio Negro. 
We ride for days through its black, muddy waters, winding 
in and out through dense forest until at last we come to the 
mouth of the Casiquiare (ka-se-kya'ra) , a river uniting the 
Orinoco with the Amazon system. We travel northward 
some distance on this stream and are soon floating down 
the Orinoco through the llanos (la/noz) on our way to the 
Atlantic. 

1. Why is the Amazon called the King of Rivers? Compare its 
basin with the United States. Compare the rainfall with that of 
your home. How long is the Amazon? The Orinoco? The Rio 
de la Plata ? The Mississippi-Missouri ? The Nile ? (See Table VII.) 

2. Locate the three principal Amazon ports on the map. How 
far inland is Manaos? Iquitos? 

3. Describe your trip through Para. Name some of the exports 
and imports which you see on the ships and in the stores. 

4. How many things can you mention for which rubber is used? 
What do you own that is made of it? What is plantation rubber? 
Where is it grown ? Name a United States city which is noted for its 
rubber factories. Describe a visit to a rubber forest. Tell how 
the rubber is gathered and prepared for the market. (See Carpenter's 
"How the World is Clothed," chapter 34.) Follow a shipment of 
rubber from Para to Akron. 

5. Locate on the map the chief tributaries of the Amazon. Trace 
President Roosevelt's journey up the Paraguay and on to the Amazon. 
About where is the stream that is named for him ? 

6. Give a picture of the tropical forest. What nut do we get 
from there? Bring some from the store to class. 

7. Describe Manaos. Why has it become so important ? 

8. Which country has the most Indians, Brazil or the United 
States? Name some of the tribes of Brazil. WTiich are the most 
civilized? The most savage? 

0. By what two routes might we go from Manaos to the Pacific 
Ocean? Locate the Madeira-Mamore railway. What river con- 
nects the Amazon system with the Orinoco ? Take a trip from New 
York to Para, direct and by the Panama Canal. 



THE ORINOCO AND THE LLANOS 365 

LII. THE ORINOCO AND THE LLANOS 

IS this not a wonderful system of rivers by which almost 
all the continent east of the Andes is watered ? We 
have seen how close the headwaters of the Paraguay are 
to the southern sources of the Amazon. Indeed, with a 
short canal, we might start from the Caribbean Sea into 
the mouth of the Orinoco, go on water almost all the way 
through interior South America, and come out again into 
the Atlantic Ocean through the Rio de la Plata. If you 
will look at your map of South America you will see how 
easily we might trace our way from the Orinoco into the 
Cassiquiari and then go over the route we have just traveled 
back to Manaos and down the Amazon to the mouth of 
the Tapajos River. We might sail up the Tapajos to its 
source, when we would be so near the beginnings of the 
Parana system that in a day we could walk to one of them 
and float with the current into the Paraguay River, up 
which we came to visit Matto Grosso, Brazil. 

But we are now on the Orinoco. Its thick yellow waters, 
loaded with sediment, are rushing in a swift current down 
to the Atlantic. They have been gathered from mountains 
far to the westward and poured in through countless 
branches from the llanos, or vast meadows, and other parts 
of the basin, which all together forms a territory one fifth 
as large as the whole United States. The Orinoco is, indeed, 
a wonderful river. It is the third largest on the South 
American continent, being surpassed only by the Amazon 
and the Rio de la Plata. It is almost fifteen hundred miles 
long, and its main stream is navigable for twelve hundred 
miles, although the rapids of Maipures (ml-poo-ras') and 
Altures (al-too-ras') are about eight hundred and forty 
miles from its mouth. The river is navigable hundreds 




366 



THE ORINOCO AND THE LLANOS 367 

of miles above the falls, and below them it flows with 
a gentle current over almost level country to the sea, 
the tides being felt two hundred and fifty miles from the 
ocean. 

The Orinoco has four hundred navigable branches, and 
it furnishes so many water routes that there are few places 
in its basin not accessible to one of them by a mule ride of 
a few days. 

Now we have left our small boats and are again on a 
steamer. We are traveling through a country far different 
from that of the Amazon. The dense forest has disappeared 
and a vast expanse of level land stretches away on both sides 
of the river. The plains are called llanos. They are covered 
with coarse grass, the most of which is now luxuriantly 
green. Here and there it is gray, and we sometimes pass 
a tract that has been blackened by fire. 

See that smoke away off to the right and the flames rolling 
up from the ground. That is one of the prairie fires of cen- 
tral Venezuela. It has been started by the farmers, who 
are burning off the dead grass that a new crop may quickly 
come up. 

How many cattle there are on the llanos ! We see herds 
of thousands, and we learn that stock raising is one of the 
great industries of this country. More and more cattle are 
being reared every year and Venezuela now has several 
million beeves feeding upon its great plains. The beasts 
are grown for their meat and skins. The skins are salted 
and dried and shipped by the thousands to the United States 
and Europe, where they are tanned and made into leather 
for shoes and other products. 

The meat is stripped from the bones in sheets and salted 
and made into the jerked or dried beef so much desired by 
the people of Spanish and Portuguese America. It is taken 



368 ' SOUTH AMERICA 

on the steamers down the Orinoco and has a ready sale also 
in the various islands of the West Indies. 

But what is that town away off on the right bank of the 
river? There are blue and white buildings with red roofs 
rising in terraces upon the low hills. There are steamers 
at anchor at the wharf. It seems quite a city. That is 
the first evidence of civilization we have seen since we left 
Manaos some weeks ago. We are approaching the metrop- 
olis of the llanos, the chief city of interior Venezuela. Its 
name is Ciudad Bolivar (syod-thath' bo-le'var), and it forms 
the center of trade for a vast region. From it go the chief 
exports of cattle, and it is also the point from where ex- 
peditions start for the gold mines farther south. 

Now we have landed and are walking up the steep, 
narrow streets paved with rough cobbles. The houses are 
almost all of one story. They are built about courts like 
those of the Spanish towns we saw in our tour along the 
west coast. There is plenty of grass in the streets. There 
are no wheeled vehicles to speak of and we shall have to 
use horses in making our trips. Every well-to-do family 
on the llanos has plenty of horses, and we shall have no 
trouble in getting good saddle animals. Most of them are 
single-footers, having a gait like a pace, which carries one 
along so gently that he feels as though he might be riding 
on the rocking-horse of his baby brother. 

There are but few carts in Venezuela. Things are carried 
about upon donkeys. Here comes one now with two huge 
baskets filled with vegetables slung to his sides. Behind 
him is another carrying boxes of bread, and we see others 
loaded with all sorts of things, including wood, bricks, and 
stone, which they are patiently bearing to different parts 
of the city. We see more donkeys from the country when 
we visit the market. They have neither bridles nor halters 



THE ORINOCO AND THE LLANOS 369 

and they stand blinking their eyes as they wait for their 
masters to drive them back home. 

There are many kinds of vegetables and tropical fruits 
sold in the market. We see quantities of plantains and 
bananas and learn that they form a large part of the food 
of the people. There is plenty of beef, also manioc flour 
such as we saw on the Amazon. 

There are red clay bowls for cooking and many of the 
grass hammocks that form the beds and loafing and sitting 
places of nine tenths of the people. We frequently sleep 
in hammocks during our visits to the large farmers near 
Ciudad Bolivar. 

There are steamers every few days from Ciudad Boli- 
var down the Orinoco. They sail out through the delta 
and go on to the island of Trinidad, where one can get 
ships for La Guaira (la gwl'ra) and other coast cities of 
Venezuela. 

The steamer on which we go out to the sea is a great side- 
wheeler with two decks, much like the boats on the Hudson. 
It has a North American captain, but with the exception of 
ourselves the passengers are all Venezuelans. Some of 
them are white, others are of the mixed race of Spaniards 
and Indians, while others seem to have negro blood in their 
veins. There are also a few native Indians among the deck 
passengers. There are many women and children on board 
and each seems to have a pet of one kind or another. In- 
deed, there are so many cats, dogs, monkeys, parrots, and 
other birds that the scene on the deck makes us think of a 
zoological garden. 

We steam on for a day before we come to the delta. The 
river is wide and there are numerous islands. There are 
few villages and not many people. The water is so thick 
that it seems to drop mud as it flows. It is in this way that 



370 SOUTH AMERICA 

the river has built up the great delta through which we go 
to the Caribbean Sea. 

The delta of the Orinoco is about as large as the state of 
New Jersey. It is for the most part a tropical jungle cut 
by channels of various widths, which are lined with mangoes, 
palms, and other wild forest trees bound together with long 
creepers much like those we saw on the Amazon. 

Here and there Indian huts and clearings have been 
made in the jungle. The huts are mere sheds of poles and 
palm leaves, and the people within lie in their hammocks 
or come outside and gaze at us as the steamer goes by. 
The men and boys have only a rag about the waist and 
the little children are naked. The women wear short 
petticoats of the fibrous bark of the palm tree. All seem 
lazy and we learn that they hunt and fish only enough to 
keep them alive. 

LIII. VENEZUELA AND ITS CAPITAL 

WE stay only a few hours at Trinidad and then take 
ship for the ports of Venezuela. We travel from 
one place to another, making excursions into the country, 
visiting all the large cities, and spending some weeks in 
Caracas, the capital. 

Venezuela is one of the most fertile of the South American 
republics. It is so large that it would make about ten states 
the size of Indiana, and there are few others so well 
watered. We have seen something of the Orinoco basin. 
The country has many other navigable rivers, including 
more than one thousand streams. 

The coast line of Venezuela is longer than the Mississippi 
River without the Missouri ; it has thirty-two harbors and 



VENEZUELA AND ITS CAPITAL 



371 



CARIBBEAN 



numerous bays, the largest of which is Lake Maracaibo 
(ma-ra-ki'bo) , about the size of our Great Salt Lake. 

It was from Lake Maracaibo that Venezuela was named. 
When the Spaniards discovered the country, about eight 
years after Colum- 
bus first came to 
America/ they en- 
tered this bay. On 
its shores and islands 
they found a tribe 
of natives living in 
huts made of palm 
leaves and rushes. 
The huts were built 
upon piles driven 
into the sand. They 
were surrounded on 
all sides by water 




and the people went 

from one place to another in canoes. This reminded the 
Spaniards of Venice and they called the country Venezuela, 
which means " Little Venice," and by this name it is known 
to this day. Even now Lake Maracaibo has buildings on 
piles. The Indians inhabiting them live by fishing. They 
are quite savage, and although they speak Spanish they 
have not united with the whites as have many other tribes' 
of the country. 

We have seen something of the lowlands of Venezuela 
and their vast pastures, which it is said could support thirty 
or more times as many cattle as the country now has. The 
chief of these are in the basin of the Orinoco. North and 
west of that basin are hills and mountains, and here 
and there little ranges of hills. Caracas is situated a 



372 



SOUTH AMERICA 



short distance back from the seacoast in a nest in the 
mountains. 

This part of Venezuela is one of great possibilities. It 
has mineral deposits, including gold and copper. Petro- 




A water carrier is one of the sights of a Venezuelan town. 

leum has been found and there are deposits of asphalt in 
the lake of Bermudez and on the shores of Lake Maracaibo. 
The island of Trinidad has a pitch lake from which comes 



LA GUAIRA AND CARACAS 373 

the asphalt with which many of the cities of the United 
States are paved. This lake is a mile and one half in diam- 
eter. Trinidad is a colony of Great Britain. 

The chief wealth of Venezuela lies in its soil. It has large 
territories fitted for growing coffee, cacao, and cotton, and 
it produces rubber, vanilla, sugar cane, and corn. The 
most valuable product is coffee. The climate here is warmer 
than in the coffee lands of southern Brazil, and the trees 
are raised differently. They have to be shaded from the 
sun, and many of the plantations are irrigated . The shading 
of the coffee trees is done with banana plants. These shoot 
up quickly and their wide green leaves cover the tender 
coffee sprouts, at the same time keeping the soil moist. 
Other rapidly growing trees are planted later. These send 
out branches somewhat like those of the sycamore and 
furnish just the right shade. The coffee is much like mocha 
and is often sold as. such in our markets. 

The cacao of Venezuela is also especially fine. Some of 
our best chocolate candies and cakes are made from the 
beans exported from this country to New York and Boston, 
from which they are shipped to the chocolate factories. 
The trees are carefully cultivated. They are set out in 
orchards, which are irrigated and shaded much as the coffee 
is. The trees produce abundantly, sometimes two crops 
in one year. 

LIV. LA GUAIRA AND CARACAS 

WE have landed at La Gua'ira, the chief port of Ven- 
ezuela, among steamers from Dutch, English, 
Spanish, Italian, and other European ports. There is a 
vessel at the pier that has just come from New York. 

SO. AM. 24 




374 



LA GUAIRA AND CARACAS 375 

The town is hot, and the tropical sun beats down upon us ; 
and the temptation is great to take ship and be home within 
a week or ten days. However, we have still several South 
American countries to see, so we turn our backs on the 
steamer and stroll through the town, hugging the shady 
side of the streets. 

La Guaira is the principal gateway of Venezuela to the 
outside world. Most of the exports go out from here, and 
it is connected by railway with the capital, Caracas, situated 
a half mile higher above the sea and in a straight line only 
six miles back from the coast. However, we have no flying 
machines, and we shall go there by the long, winding way 
up the mountains by rail. All together, we shall have to 
travel on the cars about twenty- two miles. 

The ride is one of the most delightful of all the railroad 
rides of this wonderful continent. As we start out from La 
Guaira we pass through banana plantations and groves of 
palms and then shoot into a jungle of tropical vegetation. 
The road soon rises. Now we are climbing the mountains, 
turning this way and that. Now we go over bridges, look- 
ing down into canons many hundred feet deep, and now 
shoot through tunnels, to come out again, on the side of 
the mountain, with a vast expanse of the blue Caribbean 
Sea under our eyes. The air is cooler and we drink in great 
breaths. The fever-laden, tropical atmosphere of the coast 
has vanished. As we rise we are more and more invigorated, 
and when we leave the train at the Caracas station we are 
in one of the most healthful climates of the world. 

The city lies in a beautiful valley about two miles wide 
and fifteen miles long, surrounded by mountains, some of 
which are two miles high. The valley is covered with 
sugar plantations, vegetable gardens, groves of coffee and 
cacao, and orchards of oranges, lemons, and other fruits. 



'* f I 


r''K' . St. 

:•■■■■. - ^ • r ■ ■ 


'jt* • ~0Jm^ % ' ,^&% 


in 








.■ .■■■ ..; 


"' If ! ^ 

4 


- f¥* 

HfrC 






376 



LA GUAIRA AND CARACAS 377 

We have already looked at our histories and know that 
Caracas is one of the old towns of the New World. It was 
founded forty years before Captain John Smith began to 
build the first hut at Jamestown. It was taken from the 
Spaniards by the English, and later by the French, but it 
continued to be a Spanish town until there was a revolt in 
South America against Spain, in which Venezuela and 
Caracas were the first to declare their independence and 
throw off the Spanish yoke. Nevertheless, the city seems 
almost new as we go through it to-day. Its sidewalks are 
paved with cement and its bright buildings are of all the 
colors of the rainbow. The houses are mostly of one story, 
so built from the danger of earthquakes. They have 
roofs of red tiles, and their windows facing the streets are 
heavily barred. We can see the women and girls look- 
ing out 

The streets cross one another at right angles, with the 
Plaza de Bolivar in the center. This plaza is surrounded by 
the government buildings, also the university, the cathedral, 
and the Episcopal palace. 

What interests us more than all these, however, is the 
equestrian statue of Simon Bolivar in the center of the plaza. 
Simon Bolivar was the George Washington of South Amer- 
ica. He organized the movement that resulted in the in- 
dependence of this country, and which gradually spread 
to the other colonies in South America. He fought also 
for New Granada, or Colombia, and Peru, and was the 
founder of the republic of Bolivia. We heard of him while 
in La Paz. 

We call upon the president at the federal palace and 
spend some time in the houses of Congress, learning that 
the republic of Venezuela has a constitution much like our 
own. It has thirteen states and five territories, and the 



378 



SOUTH AMERICA 



president has a cabinet and government departments much 
like those of the United States. 

The Venezuelans are hospitable and they make us at 
home. They have schools in the cities where the boys 
learn manual training and the girls are taught to sew and 
embroider. Many of them speak English and French and 



*v ; -.' ;, "V . :>•? .,;v; 




.... . . , 


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MWMr. 


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PfS| 


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Federal palace at Caracas. Here the laws of Venezuela are made. 



we find that the better classes live quite as comfortably as we 
do. These one-story houses cover a great deal of ground. 
The rooms encircle patios in which grow rose trees, many 
different kinds of palms, and all sorts of tropical plants. 
We have frequent motor-car rides through the valley in 
which Caracas is situated, and we learn much of tropical 
agriculture. The people are greatly interested in the United 
States, for a large part of their trade is with us. 



THE GUIANAS 379 

1. Trace on the map a journey from Trinidad to Buenos Aires by 
inland waterways. Through what countries do you go ? On what 
rivers ? 

2. Compare the Orinoco with the Amazon and the Rio de la 
Plata. What are the llanos? 

3. Bound Venezuela. Compare it with your state in size. How 
did the country get its name ? 

4. What are the chief products? What kind of candy do we 
make from one of them ? 

5. Locate the chief port of Venezuela. Its capital city. 

6. Describe your trip through Caracas. What great South 
American statesman was born there? Write a story of his life. 

LV. THE GUIANAS 

WE have one more territory to visit before we can 
close our tour of the South American continent. 
This is the land of the Guianas, three little countries situ- 
ated at the northeastern end of South America and 
bounded by Venezuela and Brazil. They are a mass of 
highlands separated from the rest of the continent by the 
basins of the Amazon and the Orinoco. 

The Guianas are different from the other countries of 
South America in that they are colonies and not independ- 
ent republics. Each belongs to a nation of Europe and 
is governed by the mother country. British Guiana is a 
dependency of great Britain, Dutch Guiana belongs to 
Holland, and French Guiana to France. Each of these 
colonies has a governor appointed by the ruler of the nation 
to which it belongs. None has a large population and none 
is of much importance in the commerce and trade of our 
gre*at sister continent. 

Still, when South America was discovered, this region was 




3&o 



THE GUIANAS 



38i 



JPort of Spain 

"jTRINIDAD 
(British) 




thought to be the richest of all. It was described by the 
early explorers as filled with gold, silver, and precious stones. 
One adventurer who skirted the Guianas and entered the 
Orinoco told of a city called El Dorado, which rose out of 
a great- white lake, 
whose smallest house 
was grander than 
any palace of the 
Incas or Aztecs. 
"In this city," said 
the explorer, "the 
vessels of the kitch- 
ens are of gold and 
silver studded with 
diamonds. The 
houses have statues 
of solid gold as big 
as giants, and there 
are figures of beasts, 
birds, fish, and trees, all of gold. The pleasure gardens 
of the island are filled with figures of gold and silver, and 
the king of the country and his court wear clothes of such 
a nature that they seem to be sprinkled with gold and 
silver from sandal to crown." 

These stories excited all Europe, and expeditions started 
out to find the city and explore this part of the world. 
Great numbers of young men joined the expeditions, ex- 
pecting to make fortunes, and in looking for the fabulous 
city they explored the greater part of northern South 
America, penetrating to the sources of the Orinoco and the 
rivers that flow into the Atlantic through the Guianas. 
It was from an expedition sent by Sir Walter Raleigh that 
Great Britain became possessed of British Guiana, and it 




382 



THE GUIANAS 383 

is said that he presented to Queen Elizabeth some nuggets 
and images of solid gold to show the value of his discovery. 
Gold really exists along the Orinoco, the Essequibo (es-a-ke'- 
bo), and in some of the streams of British, French, and 
Dutch Guiana. The deposits are comparatively small, 
and El Dorado, with its gold and diamond kitchen utensils, 
is yet to be found. However, diamonds are mined in 
British Guiana, and more than ninety thousand of these 
precious stones have been found in one year. 

The exact extent of the territory is undecided. French 
Guiana claims a part of Brazil, and British Guiana has for 
a long time contended that much of Venezuela should 
rightly belong to it. At the lowest estimate, however, 
each of the three countries is as large as the state of New 
York, and each contains some excellent land. The climate 
of most parts is unhealthful. It is exceedingly hot and 
the highlands are covered with forests as dense as the wildest 
parts of the Amazon. Here and there are high grassy plains, 
upon which cattle might be fed,. and upon the lowlands near 
the coast sugar, coffee, and cotton can be grown. Much 
of the country is still unexplored. 

What kind of people are there in these countries? We 
shall see the civilized population of the coast cities. The 
majority of the inhabitants, however, live in the wilds. 
They are savage Indians and savage negroes, the descend- 
ants of runaway slaves. The Indians are of many tribes 
and they have strange customs. The Arawaks, according 
to report, have a game called the whip dance, in which the 
dancers stand in two rows opposite each other. Each has 
a whip with a hard, strong lash made of fiber. With these 
they whip the naked calves of each other's legs until the 
blood runs down their heels. The dance is looked upon as 
a test of endurance and bravery, and the man who can 



384 SOUTH AMERICA 

stand the most whipping is considered the best. The game 
is said to go on with perfect good temper and at its close the 
dancers drink one another's health. 

The people of another tribe wear nothing but a strip 
of cloth around their waists. They are fond of jewelry 
and pierce their lower lips in such • a way that two pins 
can be worn in them. They have also pins in their 
nostrils and deck their necks and arms with such beads 
and coins as they can pick up. Most of these reports 
come from hearsay, and like the story of the golden city 
of El Dorado they may not be true. We have not the 
time to make such explorations ourselves and so shall 
leave the exact nature of the Indians in doubt, saying 
we suppose they may be as reported, but we really do 
not know. 

There is no doubt about there being many black people 
in the Guianas, and we shall see civilized negroes every- 
where. Slaves were imported for generations to work the 
sugar plantations and get the fine woods out of the forests 
for export to Europe. After slavery was abolished many 
of the negroes settled on the coast lands where they had 
been toiling. Their thatched huts are to be seen every- 
where. They are now farmers. 

Other negroes went off to the woods and formed tribes 
of bush negroes, intermarrying with the Indians. The bush 
negroes have a language that is a mixture of Dutch, French, 
and English combined with Indian and African words. 
Some of the wild negroes are brave ; many are strong and 
fine-looking. 

But here we are at the wharf of Georgetown, the capital 
of British Guiana. We have sailed up a little river, the 
banks of which are lined with tropical vegetation, with 
estates devoted to sugar and rice cut out of the jungle. 



THE GUIANAS 385 

There are many coconut palms, clumps of bamboos, and 
great trees covered with flowers. 

What a queer crowd is that on the wharf ! We rub our 
eyes and wonder if we are not in Asia rather than in South 
America. There are scores of almond-eyed Chinese, many 
black Hindoos in turbans and strange garments, and Parsees 
wearing long black coats and hats like inverted coal scuttles. 
There are numerous Portuguese and English merchants 
who have come to the steamer. Most of the Hindoos and 
Chinese have been imported to work on the plantations of 
sugar and rice, and we shall find them scattered everywhere 
through the coast countries. 

How queer Georgetown seems after our long stay in other 
parts of the continent. It is more like a city of Holland 
than of Spain or Great Britain, to which this country be- 
longs. The roofs are slanting and the houses are of wood 
or galvanized iron. Many of them are tall, with gable ends 
facing the street. 

Georgetown is a small city, but it has some large buildings. 
It lies on low land, and these buildings stand upon wooden 
piles driven into the mud to form the foundations. In 
some of the streets are canals, which serve to drain the water 
into the river in times of flood. 

The city has many modern improvements, including 
electric lights, electric street-cars, and telephones, and its 
water comes from artesian wells. We stroll along the Ring, 
a beautiful walk on the banks of the river, shaded with fine 
cabbage palms. We enjoy visiting the stores, for the mer- 
chants speak English ; they ask us to visit them in the sub- 
urbs, where they have houses in beautiful gardens filled 
with tropical plants. 

The sugar plantations are interesting. Many of them 
are large, employing hundreds of laborers and making mil- 



386 SOUTH AMERICA 

lions of pounds of sugar a year. Each plantation has its 
manager and overseers, and its books are kept as carefully 
as those of our great business establishments. 

Along the coast of the Guianas the climate is so hot and 
wet and the land is so rich that the sugar cane can be cut 
several times a year, and it will grow up for many years in 
succession without being replanted. The soil is composed 
of earth washings brought down from the mountains and 
it will raise anything produced in the tropics. The rainfall 
here is over ninety inches a year, and if the water stayed 
where it fell, it would reach higher than our heads. The 
floods are so great that dikes have been erected to keep the 
land from being overflowed. These dikes are expensive, 
and therefore nearly all the plantations are owned by men 
and companies having large capital. 

The Guianas are a land of many rivers. In British Guiana 
is one of the high waterfalls of the world. It is the Kaietur 
(ka-e-toor') Falls on the Potaro, a branch of the Essequibo 
River. This fall is about four hundred feet wide and has 
a drop of eight hundred feet or five times as great as the 
American fall at Niagara. 

We find more plantations near Paramaribo (pa-ra-mar'i- 
bo) , the capital of Dutch Guiana, which we reach in a little 
Dutch ship from Georgetown. Paramaribo lies about 
twenty miles up the Surinam River, its harbor being de- 
fended by the two forts of Zeelandia and New Amsterdam. 
It has about fifty thousand inhabitants, and in architecture, 
waterways, and houses it is not unlike the smaller cities of 
Holland. 

Many of the people speak Dutch, a language that sounds 
queer when it comes from the negroes we see everywhere. 
There are many whites and mulattoes. There are also 
brown-skinned men from the Dutch island of faraway Java, 




Cayenne has a grove of Royal palm trees behind it. There are 
more than one hundred and fifty varieties of palms in South America. 

387 



388 



SOUTH AMERICA 



who have come to work in the sugar plantations. The 
better classes are dressed in light clothes, the women wearing 
stiff skirts, loose jackets, and head-dresses not unlike turbans. 
The poor people go barefooted, and some of the children 
wear no clothing whatever. 




Village near Cayenne. 



Dutch Guiana is rich, producing rice, sugar, cacao, and 
coffee. One of the chief exports is balata, the gum of the 
bully- tree, which is used for insulating electric wires. We 
get thousands of pounds of this gum from the Guianas, and 
many people are kept busy there gathering it for us. 

From Paramaribo we steam on to Cayenne (ka-en'), the 
capital of French Guiana, situated in the mouth of the 
Cayenne River on an island about ten miles in diameter. 



THE GUIANAS 389 

The city is much smaller than either Georgetown or Para- 
maribo, but it looks quite large from the ship. It has a 
grove of palm trees behind it and a high church steeple 
rising over the rest of the buildings. Most of the houses 
arex>f two stories, some of them being covered with plaster 
painted in all the colors of the rainbow. 

This land is not much different from that of the other 
Guianas, and the people are about the same. They have, 
however, many hard faces among them. The country for 
years has been a penal colony, to which thieves and other 
criminals have been exported from France. 

The climate is not healthful and, indeed, no traveler 
would care to stay long. We are glad when the steamer 
arrives on which we can go back to the island of Trinidad, 
where, having finished our long tour of the South American 
continent, we take ship for New York. 

1. Where are the Guianas? To what three nations do they 
belong ? How do they differ in government from other South Ameri- 
can countries ? Describe the three countries. What kind of people 
do they have? 

2. Name the capital of each country. Where is it situated? 
Describe it. 

3. What are the chief products of the Guianas? What gum do 
we get from Dutch Guiana? For what is it used? How does Guiana 
keep the water from spreading over the lowlands? What European 
country does this ? 

4. Where are the Kaietur Falls ? Compare them with Niagara ; 
with Iguassu. 

5. Tell the story of El Dorado. 

6. From where do we sail for New York? How far is it? 
What large islands do we pass on the way? 



39o 



SOUTH AMERICA 



Table I. Saving of Distance Made by Panama Canal. Distances from 
Atlantic to Pacific Ports by Old Route via Strait of Magellan and 
by Panama Canal 

(In Nautical Miles) 



New York 

old route . . 

via the Canal 
New Orleans 

old route . . 

via the Canal 
Liverpool 

old route . . 

via the Canal 
Hamburg 

old route . . 

via the Canal 
Antwerp 

old route . .. 

via the Canal 
Bordeaux 

old route . . 

via the Canal 






14,019 
6,074 

14,419 

5,447 

14,619 
8,813 

i5,oi9 
9,242 

14,754 
8,963 

14,474 
8,713 



13,244 
5,299 

13,644 
4,698 

13,844 
8,038 

14,244 
8,467 

13,979 
8,188 

13,691 
7,938 



10,423 
2,864 

10,823 
2,263 

11,023 
5,603 

n,423 
6,032 

11,158 
5,753 

10,868 
5,503 



9,702 
3,359 

10,102 
2,759 

10,302 
6,098 

10,702 
6,527 

io,437 
6,248 

10,157 
5,998 



o" 
a 55 
o < 

H > 



17,780 
9,835 

18,180 
9,234 

18,380 
12,574 

18,780 
13,003 

18,515 

12,724 

18,235 
12,474 



< < 
> o 



£ < 3 

Wfe g 
55 W 

Hail* 



l8,9IO 
IO,885 

I9,3IO 
IO,284 

I9,5IO 
13,624 

I9,9IO 
14,053 

19,645 

h 13,774 

19,365 
13,524 






19,530 
11,585 

19,930 
10,984 

20,130 
14,324 

20,530 
14,753 

20,265 
14,474 



03 



14,560 

9,852 

14,960 

9,251 

15,160 
12,591 

15,560 

13,020 

15,295 
12,741 



19,985 15,015 

14,224 12,491 



8,461 
4,630 

8,861 
4,029 

9,061 

7,369 

9,461 
7,798 

9,196 
7,519 

8,916 
7,269 



Table II. Distances from United States and Europe to Principal South 
American Ports 



From 


To 
New York 


To New 
Orleans 


To San 
Francisco 


To Port 
townsend 
(Seattle) 


To 
Liverpool 


Buenos Aires .... 
via Strait of Magellan 
via New York . . . 

Callao 

via Panama . . . 
via Strait of Magellan 
direct 


5,868 

3,392 
9,603 


6,318 

2,764 
10,142 


7,5n 
9,o59 

4,012 


8,286 . 
9,067 

4,769 


6,243 

5,937 
9,980 





TABLES 






391 




Tabli 


: II (Continued) 






From 


To 
New York 


To New 

Orleans 


To San 
Francisco 


To Port 

Townsend 
(Seattle) 


To 
Liverpool 


Panama 1 






3,277 


4,052 




via Canal and Colon . 


2,028 


1,427 






4,59i 


Pernambuco, Brazil 


3,696 . 


3,969 






4,078 


via New York . . . 






2 6,887 


2 6,895 




via New Orleans . . 






2 6,451 


2 6,948 




via Panama . . . 






6,530 


7,305 




via Strait of Magellan 






9,439 


10,214 




Punta Arenas (Strait of 












Magellan) . . . 


6,890 


7,340 


6,199 


6,958 


7,314 
5,158 


Rio de Janeiro . . . 


4,778 


5,218 






via New York . . . 






3 7,969 


3 7,977 




via New Orleans . . 






7,7oo 


8,197 




via Panama . . . 






7,678 


8,453 




via Strait of Magellan 






8,339 


9,114 




Valparaiso 






5,140 


5,902 




via San Francisco 


8,33i 


7,662 








via Panama . . . 


4,637 


4,03s 






7,207 


via Strait of Magellan 


8,460 


8,733 




1 


8,747 



1 Distance by canal from Colon to Panama, 17 miles. 

2 By land and water. 

3 Distances given are by water except as otherwise stated. 

To estimate time of travel, allow 30 miles an hour by railway and 15 miles an 
hour by steamship. 



Table III. Areas of Continents and Oceans 



MILLIONS OF SQUARE MICES 

30 40 50 60 



Asia 

Africa 

North America 
South America 
Antarctica 
Europe 

Australia 

Pacific Ocean.. 
Atlantic Ocean 
Indian Ocean_. 
Arctic Ocean _. 
Antarctic Ocea 




39 2 

FEET 

30,000- 

257000 
20,000 
15,000 
10,000 
5,000 
Sea.Level 



Argentina. 

Bolivia___ 

Brazil 

Chile 

Colombia 

Ecuador 

Guianas, The 

Paraguay 

-Peruu^ — |._j 4^ 

Uruguay 

Venezuela- _ 

United States 

(Continental.) 



SOUTH AMERICA 

Table IV. Heights of Mountains 



































































u 














— s- 




















.5 


u 




a! 






| 


o 


o 

^3 


D 


# 




^ 


> Bj 


— ^5- 
s 


<d 


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PQ 

'2 

0- 


'>_ 

"3 


H 
o 

N 

'- 

O 

X>- 

s 

6 


"5 


_6- 

o 

to 
— c- 


3 

— n 


d 

o 

D" 

O 


— H- 
a 




— "c3- 
c. 


ol 
£1 


3 

to 
a 


0} 


<1 


ti 


as 

8 
W 


^ 
1 


o 

H 


O 

Q 


s 




5 







Table V. South American Countries 

AREA _ _POP _ULATtON_ 

HUNDRED THOUSANDS OF SQUARE MILES 

4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 
'' 081,000 





105,688,000 



Table VI. Population of South American Cities 

Argentina 

Buenos Aires . . . . . . . . • • ■ • 1,637,000 

. . . . . . . . . . . 156,000 

........... 222,000 



Cordoba 

Rosario . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Bolivia 

La Paz 160,000 

Sucre 30,000 

Brazil 

Bahia 290,000 

Manaos 5°> 000 

Para 200,000 

Pernambuco 150,000 

Rio de Janeiro 1,128,000 

Santos 35»ooo 

Sao Paulo . . . . . . . . . . . - . 45o>°oo 



TABLES 



393 



Table VI (continued) 

Chile 

Antofagasta 66,000 

Concepcion 73,ooo 

Iquique 47,000 

Santiago 415,000 

Valparaiso 212,000 

Colombia 

Barranquilla 64,000 

Bogota 137,000 

Cartagena 37,ooo 

Medellin 65,000 

Ecuador 

Guayaquil 94,000 

Quito 70,000 

Guianas, The 

Georgetown 54,000 

Paramaribo 37,ooo 

Cayenne 13,000 

Paraguay 

Asuncion 101,000 

Peru 

Arequipa 40,000 

Callao 34,000 

Cuzco . 15,000 

Lima 143,000 

Uruguay 

Montevideo 361,000 

Venezuela 

Caracas ' 87,000 

Table VII. Some South American Rivers 



Amazon . 
Bio Bio . 
Colorado . 
Essequibo 
Grande . 
Guayas . 
Iguassu . 
Madeira . 
Magdalena 
Negro . . 
Orinoco . 



Miles 



3,400 
250 
700 
600 
850 
200 
825 

2,025 

1,000 
970 

1,500 



Paraguay . . 
Parana . . . 
Parnahyba . 
Pilcomayo 
Plata-Parana 
Sao Francisco 
Tapajos . . 
Teodoro . . 
Tocantins 
Uruguay . . 



Miles 



1,300 
2,790 
1,070 
1,200 
2,500 
1,810 
1,245 
800 
1,650 
1,030 



Some Other Great Rivers 

Kongo 

Mississippi-Missouri 

Nile 



2,800 
4,200 
3,9oo 



394 



SOUTH AMERICA 



Table VIII. Number of Cattle 



India 

United States 

Russia 

Brazil 

Argentina 

Germany 

Asiatic Russia 

France 

United Kingdom _ _ 




,odb,ooo 

,000,000 
,000,000 
,000,000 
,000,000 
,000,000 
,000,000 
,000,000 
,000,000 



Australia 

United States __. 

Argentina 

Asiatic Russia 

European Russia . 

South Africa 

United Kingdom. 

New Zealand 

India 



Table IX. Number of Sheep 

MILLIONS 

40 60 




Table X. Principal Wheat-Producing Countries 



( 

United States 

Russia 

India 

France 

Canada 

Italy 


) 100 2( 


MILLIONS C 
)0 3C 


F BUSHEL. 
4C 


5C 


6C 





i ■ mi nun i ■ 












"j^]"" n' -1 !! 
























IIIIMMM 






























































































T 













000,000 
000,000 
000,000 
,000,000 
000,000 
.000,000 
000,000 
000,000 
000,000 
,000,000 
000.000 



Table XI. Principal Copper-Producing Countries 



MILLIONS OF POUNDS 

400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 



United States 

Japan 

Chile 

Canada 

Mexico 

Spain and Portugal. 

Peru 

Norway 



.1,927,000,000 
__179,000,000 
-_157,000,000 
__120,000,000 
_ 112,000,000 
._ 110,000,000 
,_. 92,000.000 



: 77,000,000 



TABLES 



395 



Table XII. Principal Silver-Producing Countries 



MILLIONS OF FINE OUNCES 

10 20 30 40 50 60 


70 


80 

.74, 

2S 


Canada 






























22, 




















Peru 




I 9 ' 


Japan 

Spain and Portugal- 
















5 


■*- 














4, 














- .3 




■ 














2, 






i 



















Table XIII. Principal Tin-Producing Countries 



10 



THOUSANDS OF TONS 
20 30 



Fed. Malay States JBHBH1MH 

Bolivia Hi^HBBBI 

Dutch East Indies. JHMH1HHI 

siam at^mmm 

China BHMHB 



414,000 
459,000 
832,000 
420,000 
,120,000 
567,000 
,863,000 
052,000 



49,000 
.23,500 
.22,000 

-9,900 
J9.000 



Table XIV. Principal Coffee-Producing Countries 



Brazil ; 

Central America 

West Indies 

Venezuela 

Colombia_ 

Dutch East Indies . 
Mexico 



MILLIONS OF POUNDS ANNUALLY (AV. 1909- 

500 1000 1500 



I3) 



British India I 28,000,000 



.1,672,000,000 
._ 195,000,000 
_ 114,000,000 
_ 111,000,000 
._ 104,000,000 

54,000,000 

49,000,000 



Table XV. Principal Rubber-Producing Countries 



THOUSANDS OF TONS 

50 100 



150 



Malay States 

Dutch East Indies. 

Brazil 

Ceylon _ 

Bolivia 



105,000 
-52,000 
-50,000 
_25,000 
„ 5,000 



Table XVI. Principal Cacao-Producing Countries 



MILLIONS OF POUNDS (1917) 

100 200 300 



British Colonies. 

Brazil 

Ecuador 

St. Thomas (Africa) 
San Domingo. 
Venezuela . 



.320,000,000 
.121,000,000 
-88,000,000 
-68,000,000 
-55,000,000 
_ 42,000,000 



INDEX 



Aconcagua, Mount, 17, 98, 158, 215 
Alpacas, 105 

Amazon River, 17, 333-363 
Amazon, Valley of the, 333-363 
Andes Mountains, 17, 31, 66-76 
Antofagasta, 135, 144 
_^Argentina, 196-231, 241-247 
Armadillos, 228 
Ascotan, Lake, 136 
Asuncion, 257-263 
Atahualpa, 74, 84 

Bahia, 318-324 ; - 

Bahia Blanca, 198 

Balboa, port of, 38 

Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, 27 

Bananas, 43, 45. 62, 290, 373 

Barranquilla, 46 

Bodegas, 61 

Bogota, 48-50I 

Bolivar, Simon, 117, 376 

Bolivia, 1 17-134 

Borax, 136-137 

Brazil, 275-363; rivers of, 177, 32 

water powers of, 277, 322 
Buenos Aires, 223-231 

Cabot, Sebastian, 243 

Cacao, 19, 43, 62, 64, 276, 355, 373 

Callao, 86 - 

Cape Horn, 179 

Caracas, 371-378 

Cattle, 43, 208-210, 240, 264, 366,371 

Cauca River, 44 

Ceara, 330-332 

Cerro de Pasco, 99 

Cayenne, 388 

Chile, 135-196 

Chimborazo, Mount, 68 



2 ; 



Chocolate (See cacao) 

Cinchona, 126 

Ciudad Bolivar, 368 

Coal, 54, 175-179, 190 

Coca, 129 

Coffee, 19, 43, 64, 276, 289, 293-301, 308, 

373 
Colombia, 40-55 
Colon, 26 
Concepcion, 176 

Copper, 54, 64, 99, 145, 190, 372 
Cordoba, 215-217 
Corrientes, 247 
Cotopaxi, Mount, 68 
Cotton, 43, 81, 92, 94, 293, 322, 328-331 
Cristobal, 26 
Cuyaba, 282-284 
Cuzco, 104- 1 10 

Desert, South American, 77-85, 135-145 
Diamonds, 325-327, 382 

Ecuador, 56-76 

El Dorado, 380, 382 

Emeralds, 51-55 

Flax, 222 

Forests, 173, 247-253, 278 

Galapagos Islands, 56 

Gauchos, 211 

Georgetown, 384-385 

Germans, 174, 224, 288. • 

Gold, 27, 64, 131, 190, 284, 325, 372, 382 

Gran Chaco, 247-353 

Grapes, 165, 215 

Guanaco, 199 

Guano Islands, 142-144 

Guayaquil, 34, 57-60 



397 



398 



INDEX 



Guayas River, 56 

Guiana, 379-389; British, 384; Dutch, 

386 ; French, 388 
Gulf Stream, 24 

Honda, 48 

Iguassu Falls, 284-286 ' 

Iguassu River, 284-286 

Illimani, Mount, 112 

Indians — Alacalufes, 185; Araucanians, 
136, 175; Arawaks, 359, 383; 
Aymaras, 107, 119; Bolivia, 122, 
126; Botocudos, 357; Brazil, 357- 
360; Caribs, 359; Colombia, 49; 
Ecuador, 72-75, Guaranis, 257; head 
hunters, 75; Incas, 104-109 ; Lenguas, 
250; Mundurucos, 360; Onas, 194- 
195; Paraguay, 250; Peru, 83-85; 
Quichua, 107; Tobas, 250; Yaghans, 

195. 
Iodine, 142 
Iquique, 139 
Iquitos, 280, 337, 362 
Iron, 145, 276, 325 
Italians,. .224, 301, 312 
Ivory nuts, 62 

Kaietur Falls, 386 

Lace, 268 

La Guaira, 373~374 
La Paz, 120-124 
Lima, 85-92 
Llamas, 102 
Locusts, 217 

Madeira River, 355 
Magdalena River, 45-49 . 
Magellan, Ferdinand, 28, 187 
Magellan, Strait of, 181-196 
Manaos, 356 
Manganese, 325 
Manioc, 263, 340 
Maracaibo, Lake, 371 
Mate, 271-275 
Matto Grosso, 280-288 
Meat, 210, 228, 238 
Meiggs, Mount, 96 
Mendoza, 215 



Montevideo, 234-240 

Negroes, 19, 320-321, 384 
Nitrate, 135-142 

Oranges, 43, 81,-257, 263, 268-271, 322 
Orinoco River, 364-370 
Oruro, 132-133 

Pacific Ocean, 27, 40-41 

Pampas, 203-213 

Panama, 27-39 

Panama Canal, 28-39 

Panama hats, 64 

Pan American Union, 14 

Para, 337~34 2 

Paraguay, 254-275 

Paraguay River, 254, 280 

Parahyba, 330 

Paramaribo, 386 

Parana River, 241-247 

Passports, 13 

Patagonia, 197-203 

Paulo Affonso Falls, 324 

Peccaries, 253 

Pernambuco, 328 

Peru, 76-117 

Petroleum, 54, 101, 372 

Pichincha, Mount, 70 

Pizarro, 74, 84, 89, 104, 106 

Platinum, 54 

Porto Alegre, 286 

Portuguese, 278 

Potatoes, 91, 101, 124; chuno, no 

Punta Arenas, 188-189 

Quinine, 126 
Quinua, 101 
Quito, 61, 66-75 

Railways — Andes, 92-98 ; Bolivia, .118; 
Brazil, 288, 290, 324; Madeira- 
Marriore, 362; Peru, 113; Transan- 
dine, 150-159 

Rhea, 200 

Rimac River, 86 

Rio de Janeiro, 278, 305-318 

Rio de la Plata River, 241-247 

Rio Negro River, 355, 363 
I Rio Teodoro River, 352 



INDEX 



399 



Roosevelt, Theodore, 352 

Rosario, 220, 244 

Rubber, 19, 64, 124, 276, 342-351 

San Salvador, 25 

Santiago, 159-1.65 

Santos, 280-290 

Sao Francisco River, 324 

Sao Paulo, 290 

Sheep, 43, 189, 192-194, 198, 203-206, 264 

Silver, 64, 99, 131, 145 

Snakes, City of, 301-303 

Sorata, Mount, 112 

Soroche, 96-98 

Sugar, 43, 81-82, 214, 257, 328-331, 385 

Tequendama Falls, 50 
Tierra del Fuego, 189-195 



Tin, 99, 131, 133 
Titicaca, Lake, 110-117 
Tobacco, 262, 276, 293, 322 
Trinidad, 369, 372 
Tucuman, 214 
Turtles, 56, 341 

Uruguay, 232-240 

Valparaiso, 146-150 
Vanadium, 99 
Venezuela, 370-379 
Vespucius, Americus, 15, 306 
Vicuna, 104 
Vultures, 341 

Wheat, 165, 217-222 
Wool, 227. See sheep. 



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